


Mylock Short Fics Inspired By Quotes

by LadyGlinda



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Each Chapter Is A Standalone Story, Inspired By Random Lines Of The Show, M/M, Sibling Incest, holmescest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:22:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 32,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26873623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGlinda/pseuds/LadyGlinda
Summary: Short stories featuring our dear brothers Holmes, each more or less loosely based on lines from the show, not necessarily spoken by either of the Holmes boys. Each chapter is a finished fic in its special universe. Usually one without Eurus and that Victor Trevor bullshit of TFP.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Comments: 263
Kudos: 213





	1. "An Interested Party."

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SlytherinsDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlytherinsDragon/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote taken from: "A Study In Pink".  
> Jealous Mycroft, rough sex.

“He’s quite attractive, this detective, isn’t he?”

Kendrick Greyson-Cartwright turned to the soft voice and saw a very tall, very well-dressed man standing next to him. “That’s an understatement,” he chuckled. “I’d say he’s the hottest piece of flesh I’ve ever seen.”

The dark-haired man with the dimple in his chin smiled, but it was a rather… disturbing smile. “You think so?”

“Yeah, I mean… Look at his a-… bottom. He is asking for it. Do you know him?” Ken wasn’t a man who got scared easily. He wouldn’t be the CEO of one of England’s biggest computer companies if he did. But something about this man oozed danger. And power. And yet he was sure he had never seen him before. Not in the tabloids. Not in a business magazine. But he had to be someone important or he wouldn’t be here, at the reception on behalf of the honour of the great Sherlock Holmes, who had solved a case of such national importance that the internet and the papers had been full of it for days on end, making this event inevitable, considering all his other accomplishments in the past few years. He had taken the medal with obvious reluctance though, encouraged by his short friend, the doctor who wrote his blog. In fact, it had looked as if Sherlock Holmes had been about to flee and had been only held back by the iron grip of his blond friend.

“I’ve made his acquaintance, yes,” said the other man. He might be something between forty-two or forty-five. Upper class accent. Public school education.

“Bet you would like to know him really well,” smirked Ken, and then he winced when he saw the right hand of the man balling into a fist for a second before he relaxed his fingers again.

“He’s not available, I heard,” said the tall man in the bespoke suit. His eyes lingered on the figures on the podium. Very pretty and very cold blue eyes.

“Is he really shagging with this dwarf next to him?” Ken shuddered.

The other man did so, too. “I hope not,” he mumbled. “If you excuse me now.”

“It was a pleasure to chat with you, Mr…?”

“Likewise, Mr Carson-Greywright.”

“Well, actually, my name is…”

The tall man grinned and winked before he made his way through the crowd, and the lords and ladies and important business people made way for him. Almost as if they only felt his presence – nobody looked at him directly. Ken surprised himself with the weird, superstitious thought that they were behaving as if Mr _Tall And Handsome_ was a ghost...

“Hey Ken. Long time no see!”

Ken turned around and greeted his old friend Lord Gambleton. “Hello Rupert. Did you see that man I was just talking to?”

The overweight man in the black suit grinned, ruffling his thinning grey hair. “Sure. You are brave.”

“Who was that?”

“He didn’t introduce himself?”

“Not really.”

The lord leaned forward. “Doesn’t surprise me. He’s the government’s biggest secret. And usually people don’t speak out his name. It is rumoured that he hears it and makes your life a living hell.”

Ken shuddered. But then he shook his head, grinning. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“No, believe me. Anyway – he has the same last name as the man we’re here for today.”

Suddenly Ken’s throat was completely dry. “What?”

“Shh! I’m telling you.”

“You mean he’s Sherlock Holmes’ husband?” And he had told the man how hot he found the detective. But… _He_ had started that conversation, hadn’t he?! Because Ken had been looking at Sherlock?

The lord laughed out loud. “No, of course not. He’s his older brother.”

This should have been a relief. Even though it was debatable if anyone wanted to hear someone bragging about how hot they found the other one’s sibling. And… Damn… This man… He had not looked at Sherlock like a brother would. He had appeared like… an interested party...

The lord glowered at him. “Don’t even think about saying it out loud. It will be the very last thing you do. This man is dangerous…”

“Yeah. No doubt,” mumbled Ken. “So that means that…”

“Silence!” Rupert hissed, which was answer enough.

“I need another drink.” In fact, Ken had never needed one more than now…

“Me too. Let’s get out of here and over to Harry’s. And forget what we didn’t talk about!”

Ken knew he would not forget it anytime soon. But for his own health, he would never speak out the name ‘Holmes’… And certainly never make any comments about the younger one’s arse ever again… Let alone about what his brother in all probability liked – and was allowed – to do with it…

*****

“God. _I hate_ people!” Sherlock closed the door of the black limousine behind himself, and the car started immediately. The driver obviously already knew where Mycroft wanted to go – the privacy screen was up. The Diogenes, most probably. Mycroft was not done for the day for sure but there were private rooms where some quality time could be spent until he had to go back to work.

“They think you love them,” Mycroft teased him with raised eyebrows. “Doing all your good deeds for the benefit of the masses.”

“The masses can kiss my…” Sherlock couldn’t finish his sentence as he was shut up with an actual kiss. A frantic, possessive one. Oh dear…

Mycroft looked at him fiercely when they had parted for air. “People were leering at you, brother,” he accused, his hand in a firm grip around Sherlock's right wrist. “You were showing off your bum.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I can’t help it. It is attached to me! And, Mycroft, I have never heard you complaining about it when you took advantage of it!”

“Which I will do in approximately ten minutes.”

“Fine. If you may recall – you are the only one who has ever been allowed to touch it.”

“Yes… Advertised it to me in Buckingham Palace… I should have blinded Harry and John for having looked at it, too,” mused Mycroft, and Sherlock knew that his brother would do this without even flinching.

He had excused himself to John, saying he needed some alone time now that this horrible party was done. Actually it wasn’t but he had not seen a reason to stay for another painful minute. John had mercifully let him go without making any more fuss than he’d already had during that godawful ceremony.

“They didn’t look at it. John’s straight as a line and your friend Harry has how many children? And my delectable arse is just for you.” He nibbled at Mycroft's earlobe, knowing it to be an erogenous zone.

“Distracting me doesn’t change the fact that you-…”

“For god’s sake, I don’t _care_ who stares at my bum.” Sherlock threw his hands in the air. “You and your awful jealousy. Why don’t you just deport everybody who glances at me to Siberia!” He saw the expression in Mycroft's eyes and sighed. “Forget it, Mycroft. If the people who fear you only knew what an insecure-…”

“Shut up, Sherlock. Put your mouth to better use.” With this Mycroft pushed Sherlock down to his crotch while simultaneously opening his flies, and his large, half-hard cock all but jumped into Sherlock's mouth, and Sherlock could do nothing but suck it – not that he would have been complaining… He’d rather have sucked his dangerous, sexy big brother off twenty times in a row than deal with his unjustified jealousy.

He put all his considerable talent and experience into his performance, letting the fat shaft slide into his throat completely, licking the underside. Suckled the large head, dipping his tongue into the slit or teasing the fraenulum as additional treats. He was rewarded by juicy cursing – and even juicier drops of salty fluid dribbling onto his tongue.

He would have done it all the way to the eruptive end had Mycroft not stopped him with a more than slightly trembling voice. “We have arrived. Clean up your face.” He handed Sherlock his handkerchief and stored his reddened appendage.

They would enter the building through a secret entrance, using a secret elevator to get to the discreet room. None of those old farts who were sitting around on the first floor, drinking tea or sipping at their drinks while skimming through the newspaper, would see them.

*****

Sherlock hadn’t expected a slow, tender encounter and he didn’t get it. He was undressed with rather rude impatience, turned around, pushed onto the large bed – and then sharp teeth were buried into the obviously inviting flesh of his arse. He cursed but his cock reacted with excitement to being bitten and marked all over. He would have some trouble sitting on a bruised, sore behind for a couple of days at least but he didn’t care. In fact, he encouraged Mycroft to get on with it and mount him, and Mycroft grumbled something incoherent and worked two lubed fingers into him unceremoniously. Sherlock was used to the intrusion and adjusted to it within a minute. Still he gasped when something way thicker (and much longer) than those fingers followed, but he moved his hips to match Mycroft's relentless strokes.

The room was filled with the slapping, squelching noises of flesh clashing on flesh and male meat thrusting into sticky wetness and the harsh panting of two very excited individuals. Mycroft's hands were digging into his hips, surely leaving some more bruises, and Sherlock made a mental note to not flounce in Baker Street semi-, let alone fully naked until everything was healed. Given Mycroft's mood over the past few weeks the bruises would probably be replaced before they had even disappeared though. He briefly wondered if this was even a deliberate strategy to keep him from showing off his body to his flatmate – which he never did; he simply liked to walk around barely dressed in the privacy of his home. But since he couldn’t risk letting John find out about them – as he needed his blogger at the crime scenes and John would suddenly be missing his head if Mycroft found out that he knew about their incestuous relationship – he would not be able to do this anymore. Shame!

“You are _mine_!” Mycroft hissed in this moment, having deduced his thoughts obviously, and Sherlock earned himself a stinging blow to his manhandled backside when he mumbled a sarcastic, “Who would have thought?”

Mycroft even increased his pace and fucked him towards completion within mere seconds, his one hand masturbating Sherlock's so far neglected prick brutally.

Sherlock spurted all over the sheets and was filled to the brim with Mycroft's cream while still panting through his orgasm.

Mycroft looked very pleased with himself, Sherlock stated when he had rolled out of the mess in which he had collapsed. “Shower, little brother. And then you can go back to the dwarf.”

Sherlock snorted. “Not everybody can be 6 foot 1, brother dear.”

“He has the perfect height for sniffing at your arse,” retorted Mycroft, malevolently, and Sherlock burst into laughter at that, making Mycroft's lips twitch.

Sherlock slung his arms around his brother’s neck. “You’re cute when you’re jealous for no reason whatsoever, brother mine.”

The older man grinned wryly. “I know. Not that I’m cute! I do know you’re not fucking with John. It was just a bit hard to watch you with him up there. He admires you so…”

“Oh, please. I’m wrecking his last nerve and he’s doing the same with me. Always wants me to behave!”

Mycroft finally chuckled. “Horrible!”

“He is! Come. Let’s get cleaned up so you can go back to ruling the world.”

“Just our little part of it,” corrected Mycroft, modestly, and then the rather sticky and tousled brothers Holmes made their way to the small but luxurious bathroom of the secret suite.


	2. “Don’t Be Alarmed. It’s To Do With Sex.” “Sex doesn't alarm me!” “How would you know?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Binodini! Wrote this over the weekend and thought I'd post it before the other instalments. Hope you like it, girl! 💚  
> Quote taken from "A Scandal In Belgravia".  
> Pretty rough sex, top Sherlock.

This day sucked. Royally. It was hell. No. Not hell. The devil himself would have left hell if he’d had to endure this… This gathering of full-on _idiots_.

The idiots of his own family! What had Mummy thought, inviting all his horrible cousins and crazy Grand Aunt Mybelline who still thought they were in the 1940s? At least she was sitting in a wheelchair – actually she looked as if she had been ancient when Roosevelt had still been a little boy – and couldn’t follow him outside. But she had hit him with her cane when he had dared snatch some grapes from the table where all the food had been piled up.

He was standing in the garden, smoking a cigarette. He had sneaked outside when Cousin Jollecroft had started to sing – ‘I dreamed a dream’ of all the difficult songs she could have chosen… Sherlock still needed his hearing, thanks very much…

The silence in the dark garden was a blessing. The gruesome music had stopped for him as soon as he had closed the door behind himself. He inhaled and blew out the smoke. Thank God, Mummy only got 70 once… He wouldn’t survive more of these occasions… He could have done so much else instead. Dissecting an ear. Running after a shabby criminal with sweat-soaked, stinking clothes. Talking to Anderson. Anything of this would have been better than hanging around here...

Two things happened simultaneously – the door behind him opened up which brought the noise outside – and Cousin Kenlock appeared from the darkness of the garden, holding hands with one of the women who had served dinner.

“Oopsie,” Kenlock chuckled. His dirty-blond hair was tousled as if he had been standing in the centre of a hurricane. “See who’s there – our great detective. Will you solve the case now what me and Susie have been doing?”

The red-head giggled and Sherlock sighed. Before he could say anything, he heard a mocking voice say from behind him, “Don’t be alarmed, Sherlock. It’s to do with sex.”

“Sex doesn’t alarm me,” retorted Sherlock, turning to his blasted brother with furious eyes.

Mycroft smiled. “How would you know?”

Kenlock laughed like the idiot that he was. “Yeah, Sue, can you imagine? He’s how old, thirty-five? And has never fucked with anyone.”

“But he’s so _pretty_ ,” the woman who had lipstick smeared over most of her face said.

“Well, he may be, but his tongue is too sharp. Scaring everybody off.”

Sherlock was so angry that he was close to exploding. And the hand that was soothingly put onto his back, invisible for the couple, did nothing to calm him down.

“You should better go inside,” Mycroft said to Kenlock. “I’ve heard your grandmother is searching for you.”

Kenlock sighed. “God. Does she want to send me off to war again?”

“Don’t let anyone stop you,” grumbled Sherlock and stubbed his cigarette, watching the giggling girl and the unbearable relative hasten inside. The great aunt was very rich after all...

Then he turned to Mycroft, who was giving him a sheepish grin. “So… brother mine. I’m the idiotic virgin who knows nothing about sex, ain’t I?”

“You know we have to let them go on believing that,” said Mycroft, apologetically.

“Well, perhaps I should remind you that I am, in fact, not.” And with this he grabbed his brother’s wrist and dragged him deeper into the garden.

*****

“God, no, we can’t do this here!”

“Shut up, Mycroft. You had it coming. And you crave it, don’t you?” Sherlock all but ripped Mycroft's trousers and pants down. “You love being dominated by the silly virgin, huh?”

Yes. He was right. Hardly a difficult deduction, this, given Mycroft's raging erection that had slapped against his abdomen when he had been freed of his clothes by the man who was decidedly not a virgin but obviously royally pissed off by his words. Mycroft was standing with his back against the high oak about twenty metres from the house. It was surrounded by all kinds of vegetation and Mycroft shuddered at the thought at how many bugs might find their way into his underwear and into places he definitely didn't want to find insects in. But of course one of these places would be occupied by a large, circumcised cock soon enough.

Sherlock turned him around none-too-gently and sharp teeth scratched over Mycroft's sensitive neck.“You like to provoke me, don’t you, like to make me punish you, Mr Cool and Aloof. Everybody thinks you’re in charge and I’m just a brat you’re still looking for as if I was five. But I’m not, right, and I’m _no bloody, fucking virgin_!”

Mycroft was pressed against the rough wood now and he tried to cover his face with his arm so it would not get scratched up. Thankfully, it had not rained for a couple of days so he would hopefully not get too dirty as the wood was dry. But it was hardly a soft cushion...

“Oh, don’t worry. You can just tell them we got into a fight and I got all rough at you and scratched up your face.” Sherlock worked a finger into him – lubed only with his spit. His hard cock was rubbing across Mycroft's cleft, leaving a wet trace. Sherlock was highly aroused and producing lots of natural lube.

Mycroft was grateful for it. This was going to get painful enough…

“Don’t pretend to be afraid of me fucking you dry. You love it, you love feeling the burn and feel me for days whenever you walk or sit down.”

“I do,” admitted Mycroft, panting. He whimpered when his cheeks were spread by two large hands and the sticky tip of Sherlock's cock was knocking against the forbidden door. He had entered there more often than Mycroft could have counted and so he slid home without much effort. It did sting, and burn, and hurt, but it also sent waves of pleasure through Mycroft's arse and groin.

Sherlock wasted no time as they both knew they didn't have it. It was madness anyways to do this here in their parents’ garden with a house full of people – and some of them might, like their nasty cousin and the waitress, have the same idea. So Sherlock hammered into him while simultaneously working Mycroft's shaft with one hand.

Mycroft came within an embarrassingly short time, spilling his load against the tree, and then Sherlock grunted and bit down on his shoulder, filling him with hot stickiness to the brim. Mycroft almost keeled over when Sherlock kneeled down to lap up the fluid that was flowing out of his arse almost instantly.

“Can’t let you return to Mummy with pants full of come, can I?” Sherlock stated when he got up. “So. Do you see a prissy virgin anywhere, brother mine?”

“No,” Mycroft brought out. He felt decidedly boneless and as if all air had left his lungs after this vigorous ride. He would indeed feel this for days on end and of course that had been the point for both of them. Stealing time for one another was difficult enough considering both their demanding professions and Sherlock's nosy landlady and his clingy friend Doc Watson. But of course he still thought about Sherlock almost constantly, no matter how busy he was. And it did suck to have to pretend they were nothing but antagonistic brothers whenever they met in the presence of others.

When they were both dressed again, he pulled Sherlock close. “Thank you, little brother. For reminding me that you are no virgin and that I am your property.”

Sherlock grinned – his mood had clearly improved. “You really are, aren’t you? My pretty big brother, all pliant for me.” He kissed Mycroft on the lips and Mycroft returned the smooch wholeheartedly. Then Sherlock pulled back and sighed. “Let’s sneak back inside and into a bathroom. We do bear some traces of this nice little encounter.”

Yes. Best not to run into their mother now. And they had to get back before she was missing them. Mycroft stole another embrace and a thorough kiss before they returned into battle. A forbidden love was not easy to live – but it was absolutely worth it.


	3. "Not Dead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "The Empty Hearse." Reichenbach fic, written for SlytherinsDragon, inspired by her fantastic vampire fic. My Halloween short fic :)  
> Vampire!Sherlock. No explicit smut. Angst.

Mycroft had been holding his breath until he had started to feel dizzy. Seeing it was something very different from suspecting it. Seeing the proof for his unspeakable suspicion had shattered the foundation of his entire existence. An existence of reason, of numbers, evidence and facts. All turned upside down for good in one astonishing and earth-shattering moment.

He watched Doctor Watson stumble towards the body now. Sherlock's body, his head lying in a puddle of blood on the pavement. False blood? Maybe yes, maybe no. The doctor had gotten up after getting hit by the bike, moving like a robot, Sherlock's name on his lips. Devastated. A broken man if Mycroft had ever seen one.

But he hardly bothered about the man’s feelings now, too preoccupied with his own despair. He watched how John felt for a pulse that would be impalpable. How he was being led away from the corpse that was not really a corpse. Saw Sherlock being put onto a stretcher. Brought back into the hospital from whose roof he had just allegedly jumped to his death.

Then he returned to the moment of the video he wouldn’t have had to watch again to remember it forever. Sherlock, standing on the edge of the roof, throwing his phone away after saying goodbye to his loyal friend. Jumping. And landing on his feet with all the grace of the creature he had become. Pouring red fluid from a small bottle all over his face and hair. Dropping to the ground, playing dead.

But he was not really playing. Not entirely. Not quite dead though. Not alive either.

When had Mycroft begun to suspect that something was horribly wrong with his little brother? When he had accidentally brushed his hand against Sherlock’s? And felt how cold his skin was? When he had realised that his brother’s complexion was paler than ever? His lips redder than before? His ever-changing eyes suddenly glistening in yet another colour – pale silver? His entire appearance had looked… ethereal. His beauty had become otherworldly. Strange… Only then Mycroft had realised that he was drawn to his brother like a moth to the light. Only that this light was one of cold darkness… Mycroft had registered his feelings towards Sherlock without surprise. As if this had been inevitable. And probably it had been.

Sherlock had come to him in the dark one day, a few weeks ago, to talk about Moriarty. Had explained that he might have to fake his death to deceive the man and take his network apart. They had schemed together. When Mycroft had been at home from work. In the dark. Every day.

He had never seen his brother eat or drink anything. Sherlock had usually declined the drinks Mycroft had offered him. If he had accepted a whiskey, he had barely sipped at it.

Of course this didn’t prove anything. Sherlock had never been exactly a food fetishist or _connaisseur_. He had always rather despised the needs of his transport as he called his body. And of course he had despised Mycroft for being a slave of his physical needs.

That had changed. In these few weeks when they had been working together, for the first time ever, this barrier of resentments had been gone. There had been no acidic remarks or jibes at his weight. But another barrier had lingered between them, subtle but unmissable. The barrier between the (un)dead and the living.

Mycroft had traced Sherlock's movements from a couple of weeks before he had shown up at his doorstep to ask for help. A case in the shabby streets of the East End. A fight. Sherlock alone with a group of men while John Watson had been following another member of the hush-hush gang. Sherlock had come out of it unharmed – or so it had seemed. But in fact, he must have lost this fight. And become one of _them_ … A creature without a visible heartbeat. And a pulse a doctor had not felt when he had grabbed Sherlock's wrist. A creature that was able to jump off a building and land softly on the ground.

Nobody had been there to watch him actually hit the earth. John’s view had been blocked by the ambulance station. The shooter who had been aiming at the doctor had only been able to see Sherlock fall – but not land. Mycroft had no idea what Sherlock had told his homeless network, who had done their best to distract John, and his faithful Molly Hooper how he really planned to survive the fall. Did they know? Probably not. Probably Sherlock had done the same with them as he had done with Mycroft more than once during the time of them making plans for this eventuality. Whenever this topic, this immensely important topic, had arisen, he had… done something with him. Not really distracting him, nothing so obvious. Mycroft was unable to describe it. It had felt as if he had been caught in a bubble. Or in thick fog. His thoughts had been getting blurry and unfocused. He had been fooled and left in the dark.

Had Sherlock foreseen that he would film him and Moriarty on the roof? Film him jump and land like a cat?

Yes. And Mycroft was quite sure that Sherlock would have been able to mess with the video material, make it useless. But he had chosen not to do it. Had chosen to let him see. Let him know.

Mycroft buried his face in his hands, sitting at his desk, and succumbed to the tears.

*****

He could feel Sherlock approaching him even though he had not heard him enter. His shoes on the thick carpet almost made no sound. Mycroft's alarm system had stayed quiet. Not because Sherlock had disabled it, he was sure. Sherlock could come and go now without triggering it. But his presence, his powerful presence, was impossible to miss.

He did not turn around. Standing in front of his fireplace, he sipped at his whiskey again. His hand was shivering. The tension in the room was unbearable.

Sherlock only spoke when he was standing directly behind him. His breath was cold against Mycroft's neck, making the little hairs on it stand up. “You have cried, big brother.”

Mycroft nodded. “I did.”

“Mourning me? Not dead.” There was a strange mixture of mockery and sympathy in Sherlock's tone.

“No. Not alive either.”

“I know you’d deduced it. But you didn't want to believe it.”

Mycroft finally turned around to face him. Sherlock didn't even step back so their faces were very close to each other. “How could I? These… things don't exist.” He put his glass onto the small round table near the fireplace.

“So I’d thought, too. Until I was disabused. And _‘things’_ , brother? Do I look like a thing to you?” Sherlock smiled but the smile was sad and cautious.

“No,” Mycroft whispered. He slowly reached out and put a hand onto Sherlock's pale cheek. It felt like marble. In his mind’s eye, Sherlock's face turned into the one of the little boy he had looked after. The teenager he had pulled out of drug dens. The man he had loved in so many ways for so long. They were all gone. And still. What was left was an irresistibly attractive… Sherlock. Whatever he was now – and Mycroft had big problems to even think of the v-word – he was still and would always be his baby brother. And the man he wanted.

Sherlock grabbed his waist with both hands. Pulled him even closer. Their lips met and Mycroft sighed in both astonishment and excitement. For a moment he caught himself hoping he could breathe life back into Sherlock. But of course this was a stupid thing to hope for. Sherlock was beyond being revived. His right hand found the spot on Sherlock's chest where he should have felt his heartbeat. And it was there – but barely.

Their kiss stopped before it got messy. “Don’t leave,” Mycroft said, feeling desperate.

“You know I have to,” Sherlock said softly. “And you know I’ll be safe. I am stronger than all of Moriarty’s men combined now.” And with this he picked Mycroft up and carried him through the room like a bride, with ease, as if he weighed nothing.

And Mycroft knew he would have at least this. This night. If Sherlock didn't come back. He might be strong; he was just proving it. But there would be others like him. And he was not indestructible. Creatures like him could still be killed.

“Don’t worry, brother mine.” It was disturbing how Sherlock could read his mind now. “I do intend to return as quickly as possible.” They had reached Mycroft's bedroom, and Sherlock put him onto the bed gently.

And then what? Tell John Watson what he was now? For how long could he even hide it? How had he been hiding it from the man he had been sharing a flat with anyways?

Sherlock gave him a knowing look. “I do avoid going outside in the sunshine. But thankfully, we didn't have much of it lately. Daylight doesn’t burn me to a crisp. It doesn’t work like that. And nobody should bother with pouring holy water over me. Fire is bad though, but for whom is it not? And I wouldn’t make it for very long in a desert.” He shrugged off his coat and was straddling Mycroft's lap within a second. “But usually we go to crime scenes in the early morning hours when most bodies are found.”

Mycroft was amazed by how fast his brother was moving now. The closeness sent sparks of electricity through his body. His cock was straining against his flies – and Sherlock's crotch. “Show me,” he mumbled, surprising himself. He did not mean Sherlock's erection, which was clearly visible beneath the fabric of his trousers.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows and smiled. With completely normal teeth. But then… Mycroft could see two of them getting longer.

“Oh God…”

Little brother shook his head. “I believe God has nothing to do with this. No, don’t. Don’t cry.”

Mycroft blinked the tears away. “I’m sorry.”

“No. Don’t be. You care. You’ve always done. And I never wanted to see it.” Sherlock shook his head. “This… made me see. So much. We don’t have much time now. Let’s not waste it. And when it’s all done, you’ll come to me. Spend a day and night with me before I come home. Not sure which destination will be the last one. But you will know it. I bet you won’t leave me without surveillance for a minute.”

“I didn’t plan to,” Mycroft said, desperation in his voice. “But what if they find out… what you are?” His agents are no idiots. Otherwise they would be useless. But in this case, their training and intelligence would be dangerous for the only person in the world Mycroft cared about. Of course Mycroft could order them to keep quiet. But it would come out. This secret was too exciting to be kept. The only alternative was to leave Sherlock to his own devices, and it broke his heart just to consider that.

“That won’t happen, and even if anyone suspects it – I can always throw dust in their eyes. But I don’t need backup. Don’t underestimate me. I will always let you know where I’m staying so you can have an eye on this place. And of course I can still use a phone.”

Mycroft had bought him a new smartphone as throwing it onto the earth had destroyed Sherlock's old one. He had needed a new number anyway. Nobody was supposed to know that he was still, well, alive after all. “Text me, Sherlock. Every fucking day.”

That brought him a smile. “I will.”

“And if you need help, let me know. At once.”

“You would come for me yourself? Mr _I-Hate-Legwork_?” Sherlock smiled.

“I would. You know that… I’ll always be there for you.”

“Be here for me now,” said Sherlock, seriously, and then he bent down to claim his mouth in a possessive, rather _toothy_ kiss.

*****

It was a miracle that he was still standing on his feet. Rather unstably though. His brain was dizzy. His entire body felt tingly and as if it was not his own anymore. Nothing was like before. Nothing ever would be.

He supposed that he had every reason to feel like this.

Number one – the sex. He had made love to his little brother. He had felt his brother’s digits inside him. Had felt his _cock_ inside him. Never before had he been taken. Sherlock had been big. And cool. Not cold, and his organ had been throbbing. But when Mycroft wrapped his fingers around his own prick, he felt pulsating warmth. The act itself was almost a blur. Not even Mycroft's giant brain could save this data. It had been too overwhelming. He had felt arousal in places he hadn’t known he possessed. He had scratched and sucked and licked and clung to his brother’s lean body for dear life. It had lasted endlessly. It had been over way too soon. He had come five times.

Number two – the emotion. He was in love now. He had been before, had vaguely registered it. But in the busy, work-filled days they had been spending preparing Sherlock's mission, he had not allowed himself to dwell on it. Not even feel guilty for it. And he didn’t do so now. It would have been rather… senseless.

Number three – the bite. He had heard himself begging for it. Sherlock had denied it. In the end, his teeth _[fangs]_ had been scratching over the tender skin of his neck. And then he had drawn blood. Mycroft had seen it, his own essence of life, on Sherlock's teeth afterwards. Had watched him licking it off his lips. The feeling of being bitten and drunk from couldn’t be compared to anything he had ever experienced. A part of him was Sherlock's now, literally.

Number four – the goodbye. The thought of having to let his brother go on this dangerous mission had been bad enough _before_. Now it had been unbearable. He had begged Sherlock to stay, knowing it to be futile. His brother was a man of, yes, honour. He had every intention to protect his friends.

In the end, Sherlock had agreed on meeting when he had taken out two or three of Moriarty’s cells. Mycroft would come to him, no matter how far.

“ _We will talk about_ that _, too,”_ Sherlock had said when they had parted after kissing for what seemed to be hours.

Mycroft had not even voiced his request. It was not necessary to speak anything out anymore. Sherlock had read it. Probably even heard Mycroft's thoughts. There was only one way to be together forever. To stop ageing. To be one.

Nothing could stay the same for Sherlock anyway. Even if he came back to Baker Street, to the people who thought he was dead, he could not stay for very long. He would not get older. Eventually, even John Watson would realise that something was decidedly wrong with the man he thought he knew, and Mycroft didn’t see him accepting it. In the end, Sherlock would have to leave.

And Mycroft would never let him go alone. Not for good.

He had no idea how to survive being without Sherlock for however long his mission would take. It felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest.

“ _Don’t fret, frater,”_ Sherlock had said before he had disappeared into the darkness. _“We will see each other very soon. You’re mine now.”_

“ _I have always been yours,”_ Mycroft had replied, and Sherlock had smiled.

“ _I know. Goodbye, lover mine.”_

Mycroft finally went back into his house. Back into his bed. He could still smell Sherlock on the sheets. He still felt as if Sherlock was inside him. The burn would not disappear so soon – he hoped so at least. The ache in his heart would not cease – until they finally met again.


	4. “I Hope I’m Not Distracting You?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "A Study In Pink".  
> Just some short silliness with a rather bratty Mycroft.

“I hope I’m not distracting you?” Mycroft was all innocent eyes and friendly smile.

Sherlock looked at the elegant, beautifully shaped hand on his crotch. “Actually…” He was sitting in Mycroft's big armchair, and his brother was seated on the floor in front of it with his legs crossed, fully dressed but oozing mischief.

“Ah, just go on reading. I’ll amuse myself down here a bit more. Pretend I’m not even there.” Mycroft unzipped Sherlock's trousers with a nonchalant gesture.

Sherlock suppressed a moan when his rapidly stiffening cock was deftly worked out of its confinements. He highly doubted that ‘pretending Mycroft wasn’t even there’ would work. And he would have loved to just throw the papers through the room and hand himself to the devilish hands of his beloved brother.

But his honour as a detective was at stake! He had visited each of the five crime scenes, had been brooding over the evidence for days on end, but he had still not been able to solve this case. Five victims, all completely different. Men and women, the youngest one 14 year old, the eldest 87. Some posh people, some common ones, one living in a retirement home. One had been strangled, one drowned, the others killed with different blunt objects. No common denominator in sight.

“Working so hard, my dear detective,” purred Mycroft, his soft but strong fingers closing around Sherlock's prick firmly now, his hand sliding up and down agonisingly slow, his thumb lazily wiping over the slit whenever it arrived there.

Sherlock felt decidedly dizzy and horribly aroused now – but he was made of stern stuff! He had promised Lestrade to finally bring light into this bizarre matter. So he tried to focus on reading, eager to find that one clue he had missed so far. And then his cock was engulfed by hot wetness and the tip of a cheeky tongue teased at his fraenulum.

“Fucking hell, Mycroft!”

His brother let his cock go with a plop. “I’m terribly sorry. I just crave my lovely lollipop. Let me just suckle away a bit. Go on. Do your job. Ignore me.”

Bloody sexy big brother, trying to make him go crazy! Fine, Sherlock might had distracted him like this when he had been on the phone with the PM or Mummy but that was something different. It was his _job_ as the younger sibling to be annoying and drive the older one mental. It wasn’t fair that _Mycroft_ took to such dirty tricks now!

His entire body shuddered when Mycroft’s left hand gently pulled at his ball sack before weighing his testicles in his palm and tickling the underside. His cock was so hard that it was threatening to burst anytime now.

The folder slipped from his hand and he slumped against the backrest of the chair, going all pliant and boneless under the now relentlessly sucking mouth. Mycroft was pulling all his tricks, including working the tip of his tongue beneath Sherlock's foreskin to circle his super sensitive glans. His never-idle hands were working his shaft and his balls, and it was a sheer miracle that Sherlock didn’t spill within twenty seconds of this highly pleasurable torture. But when Mycroft hummed around his cock while pulling at his sack with a bit more force than what was pleasant, Sherlock tumbled over the edge and shot his load down that eagerly swallowing throat.

Feeling like a balloon that had suddenly lost all its air, he collapsed on his chair, feeling a silly grin pulling at his lips. With closed eyes, he stayed like this for a few minutes, unwilling and unable to function after this fantastic orgasm. Soon enough Mycroft’s own hard prick would get nudged against his lips, searching for entrance, and then he would have to move again.

It was to be blamed at his post-orgasmic bliss that he didn’t register the rustling of paper instantly. So he only opened his eyes widely when Mycroft said, “Oh, I see. It was the third victim.”

“What?!” Sherlock gaped at him, suddenly feeling all awake.

Mycroft nodded at the papers on the floor. “Glanced at the reports. Really, it’s plain as day.”

“You _didn't_ …!”

“The third victim, Mrs Cumberpatch? She faked her death. She murdered them all – her old teacher. The child she had put up for adoption. Her secret lover. The retired postman who always delivered the mail too late at her previous address. And, of course, the sister nobody knew about. Made sure her body was identified as hers. Really, Sherlock. Such an easy case.”

“I _hate_ you!”

Mycroft gave him a soothing smile. “No, you don’t.” He got up and presented his large cock, slapping it against his palm most vulgarly. “Here’s someone who _really_ needs your attention.”

Fucking smart big brother, solving his awful case in no time! Sherlock shuddered when a warm hand was put under his chin so he had to look into those gorgeous blue eyes. “Look at the bright side – you can spend all night with me now, and Lestrade will be so proud of you.”

Grumbling, Sherlock opened his mouth and closed his lips around the massive boner that was shoved into it at once. Well, Mycroft did have a point. But if he ever dared solve one of his cases again...!

“Sure, brother mine. You will explode,” nodded Mycroft, and Sherlock pinched his arse in outrage, but the bloody sod only laughed.

And Sherlock sighed and while sucking the biggest cock this side of the Thames, he simultaneously texted Mycroft's (of course accurate) solution to Lestrade, and grimaced when he got a very enthusiastic reply. The things he had to put up with!

With a sigh, he focused on the matter at hand, or rather: _in his throat_ , and at least he got _this_ job done without any help from too-smart big bro.


	5. "I Worry About Him. Constantly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Injured Sherlock. Mycroft and Mrs Hudson talking at the hospital.

A real sadist must have produced these hospital chairs, Mrs Hudson thought vaguely. Something this hard and uncomfortable for people who needed some comfort more than anything. She shook her head over herself. What kind of comfort should a plastic chair provide anyway? God, her poor, poor Sherlock! Fighting for his life! He still hadn’t woken up even for a moment. It was simply horrible.

She rummaged for another tissue in her handbag. Since she had been told that Sherlock had been so severely injured, she had needed a couple of packages already. They hadn’t let her visit him for longer than a minute. She had basically been only allowed to have a look at him from the door. He had looked so small and fragile in the large bed, everything around him white, the monitors beeping. If she ever found out who this had been…!

She blew her already sore nose once again – and then she almost shrieked when she realised that someone was standing right next to her chair, towering over her. “Mr Holmes. Oh, isn’t it terrible?”

He sat down on the godawful chair next to her. Since he was so much taller, he had to practically fold himself in two to fit onto the plastic menace. “Yes,” he said softly.

She noticed how gaunt he was looking. He had certainly not slept for a minute since this devastating piece of news had reached him – since Sherlock had been found close to dying in that dark alley. His suit was uncharacteristically crumpled and his short, thin hair was a tousled mess. It was hard for her to fear for Sherlock's dear life but for this man, it had to be a lot more devastating. Because one thing was clear – he deeply cared about his little brother, and she felt ashamed for how she had been treating him whenever he had dropped by at Baker Street. Sure, he had appeared arrogant and contemptuous towards everybody, even Sherlock, but now all these layers of superiority and ghastliness had disappeared and exposed a sensitive, vulnerable human being, worried to bits, stressed out and clinging to every bit of hope that Sherlock would survive and come back to them.

“When he’s back at Baker Street, you must come over. I’ll make cake.” She blushed as she realised how stupid she had just sounded.

He looked at her with an expression of surprise – but not contempt. In fact, he smiled just a bit. “He will come back. He’s strong. And he has his friends to live for.”

Her heart melted even more at this. This man loved his little brother – even though Sherlock had always been rather nasty to him when she thought about it. He thought that Sherlock only cared for her and John and his other friends. And still he was here while John was with this awful girlfriend of his. He had said he couldn’t endure watching Sherlock lying there like this and that he couldn’t do anything for him now by sitting around in a hospital. Which was true, but still… Molly had only dropped by shortly. It was almost… as if they had given him up already. Mycroft Holmes had not.

She patted his hand, surprising him and herself with that gentle gesture. “Not just his friends. You too.”

He gave her a doubtful look and a sad smile. “I remember every minute I’ve spent with my brother, Mrs Hudson. Since the day he was born. And I always worried about him. Constantly. He was so small and fragile but he couldn’t walk and run soon enough. He has always been like that – hurling himself into every danger. Seeking adventures or making them happen if they didn’t come by themselves. Always out for the kick that would save him from boredom.”

She pressed his hand, encouraging him to keep on talking, and he nodded.

“And then he discovered the drugs. I had left home at this point. I didn’t want to. Because of him. But that’s life, I suppose. The only constant is change.”

“Yes. I’m sure you missed him. And he you.”

He gave her a pained look. “He wouldn’t talk to me anymore. Never answer my letters, nor my calls. It was… hard. Somehow he got through all this. And then he met John Watson, and the rest is, as they say, history.”

A history that excluded him. But John was barely at Baker Street these days, spending most of the time with this woman. This was _the_ chance for the brothers Holmes to get closer again. She told Mycroft Holmes as much and he just smiled this painfully sad smile again.

“I doubt that he would want that.”

Martha Hudson had never been easily shocked – not after having found out that her husband was a drug lord and a killer. And what she was sensing now that the man's usual shields were barely there, what she was seeing in these red rimmed blue eyes stunned her. Amazed her. But it did not shock her.

He swallowed hard when he deduced that she had seen it. And he changed the subject they had not even remotely spoken out immediately. “I know who shot my brother, Mrs Hudson. He was after several jewel thieves without telling the doctor, and he caught the boss in that alley.”

“Oh! Have you informed the inspector?”

And then Mycroft Holmes smiled, and she had never seen a crueller smile in her life. “No,” was his simple answer.

She was speechless for a moment and then she smiled. “Well done, Mr Holmes. Sherlock will be very touched. You must tell him as soon as he wakes up.”

And they both knew that she wasn’t only speaking about what he had done to the person who had almost killed his baby brother.

Mycroft sighed deeply. “He will never want to hear… that.”

She made a soothing noise. “He will. Trust me.”

“How can you say that? He will never want that. Want _me_ …” His voice was barely a whisper.

Martha had never thought she had any extraordinary powers. She had never been able to foresee the future – otherwise she would have never married Frank… But now she was absolutely sure about a certain fact. “Believe me. He loves you.” Sherlock had taken drugs when his brother had left home? He still behaved in a rather resentful way towards him, as if to punish him for having grown up long before him? And she recalled some looks she had not considered suspicious back then. But now… “He loves you,” she repeated full of conviction, and Mycroft stared at her before he took her hand and squeezed it gently, and he had such nice hands – such beautiful long fingers, soft and strong, fingers made to caress the gorgeous boy they both loved.

And the next evening, she was called by the nice detective inspector, telling her that Sherlock had woken up and that his brother was with him now, and she hurried to the hospital that she had only left two hours earlier to go home and get a bit of rest after roaming the hospital floors for another full day, always hoping to get the excellent news she had been just told.

And when she entered Sherlock's room, his brother was sitting at his bedside and both men smiled at her and blushed, and she squealed in delight and hurried to carefully kiss Sherlock's cheek and embrace his usually so stiff brother – who returned her hug wholeheartedly. And she saw happy times on the horizon for the difficult, marvellous brothers Holmes.


	6. “Sofa, Sherlock. It Was The Sofa.” / “It’s All Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double quote for this story - from The Great Game and Study In Pink.  
> John catches bratty Sherlock and indulgent Mycroft, not in the act, and not accidentally. Good friend John Watson.

John Watson seriously pondered about walking backwards. Leaving the living room – his and Sherlock's living room – he had just entered. Possibly leaving the flat. London. The country. The continent. New Zealand was supposed to be nice this time of year!

The reason for his contemplation was the sight that had suggested itself when he had, whistling and in a good mood after a successful shift at the clinic, come into the room with the innocent wish to sit down in his chair and read the newspaper – if Sherlock had not used it to make fire or to cover the kitchen table before doing another badly smelling experiment.

And then he had stopped dead.

“Hello, John. Finished for today?”

Oh yes. He was finished. Completely, he supposed. Because he would never leave this flat alive again, would he? Not after seeing _this_ ….

Sherlock was, strictly spoken, sitting in his armchair. Or to be more precise – he was sitting on his brother’s lap, and Mycroft was sitting in said chair. His right arm was curled around Sherlock's waist in a rather possessive way. His left hand was resting on Sherlock's bum. They were both fully dressed but they still looked strangely naked. Perhaps it was the kiss-swollen lips? The tousled hair? That weirdly wanton look in both men’s eyes? And yeah – Mycroft's hand on Sherlock's arse. That was the most obvious sign…

There was something forbidden and incestuous going on between them, from the looks of them it had been happening for a long time – and John had caught them, and Mycroft, the British Government, Secret Service and CIA on a freelance basis, would let him disappear now.

But then it dawned on him that neither of the brothers looked overly surprised. This… this was staged! He had been _supposed_ to find them like this! Sure! They were making fun of him! It had been laughable to fall for that. As if they couldn’t even stand each other. Ridiculous! He huffed out a relieved laugh. “You totally got me. Wanted to give me a heart attack, huh? Didn’t work!”

Sherlock sighed. “John, I’d highly recommend you leave the deductions to people who know how to do them. Only the first part of your assumption was correct. You stumbling in on us was not an accident. But this is very real.”

Mycroft squeezed Sherlock's plush arse cheek, making the detective yelp. “Very, very real. But I’d like to stress that this,” he gestured at John as if he was an annoying insect, “was not _my_ idea.”

Green-blue eyes were rolled theatrically. “My brother seriously thinks you would give us away, John. Betray _me_ , your _best friend_! I told him that’s totally stupid. You would _never_ do something like this, would you?”

John cleared his throat. “Course I wouldn’t. I mean… Holmeses, right? Not like us mortals.” Actually he had seen Sherlock break almost every law under the sun. What was a bit of clearly consensual incest – and in all probability their relationship had also not been Mycroft's idea –in comparison?

“Yes!” Sherlock pointed at him, grinning widely. “And these incest laws are total bullshit, aren’t they? I mean, none of us is a minor. And neither of us will get pregnant by the other one anytime soon, will we?”

“Probably not, no. Would be a medical sensation, wouldn’t it?” John shuddered at the image of cold-eyed, sociopathic little offspring of those two dangerous men. He adored Sherlock but he would not exactly like to see him procreate. At the very last with his brother, the coldest fish in the western hemisphere. Not that he looked that cold now. At least not when his eyes were focused on Sherlock. There was pure adoration and affection in them. But when he glanced at him, John, they suddenly became icy again. In fact, the man was scrutinising him with a decidedly unpleasant expression. “Never giving you away,” John stressed. Even if he had thought it was his (or anyone else’s for that matter) business if the peculiar brothers Holmes got tactile with each other, he would have kept it to himself. He might not have been very impressed by Mycroft when he had first met the man in that warehouse, but since then he had realised how much power this man really had. Mycroft would crush him like a bug if he tried to do anything harmful to him and/or Sherlock. He could imagine their conversation when they had discussed Sherlock's idea. _‘You can tell him,’_ Mycroft had probably said. _‘And it will be my pleasure to behead him afterwards.’_ “Never,” he repeated, shuffling with his feet, trying to look as harmless as possible. “You can rely on me. I told you before – it’s all fine.”

“Great! I knew it. I _told_ you, Mycroft,” said Sherlock with a bit too much enthusiasm, in fact, it sounded pretty much like mockery, and John finally understood that he had been thoroughly manipulated by his friend into accepting his unusual relationship. Not that this would have been necessary.

“Why did you want me to know?” he asked his friend, curiously.

Mycroft raised his eyebrows as if to acknowledge that John was not a _total_ idiot after all.

Sherlock grinned. “Because I was fed up with sneaking out of the flat behind your back. It was so annoying. Once you caught me on my way back, remember?”

John thought about that for a moment. Then he groaned. Yeah… That evening when he had been supposed to be at work and Sherlock had come home tousled and with his shirt ripped into pieces… “You told me you had been robbed!” And _Mycroft_ had done that – causing Sherlock to look that dishevelled? John could not imagine him being this passionate! But then – five minutes ago he would have thought Mycroft would never lower himself to any sexual activity…

“I was! Robbed off my decency by my shameless big brother!” Sherlock declared dramatically.

Mycroft actually snorted at that. John had never heard him producing such a profane noise before. “I beg your pardon? Ever since you hit puberty, you’ve been after my pants!”

“What would I do with your fancy pants, brother?” Sherlock predictably retorted. “He only wears pure silk, can you imagine?” he turned to John then. “One false move or a fingernail with a sharp edge and kaput they are. You should hear him whine then.”

“Because they are very expensive!” hissed Mycroft, his fingers digging into Sherlock's arse in outrage.

“But I _was_ after his _cock_ ,” Sherlock explained, completely ignoring his brother.

Too much information. Definitely too much information! “Um…”

“It took me ages, _ages_ until he finally gave in and let me blow him in his chair.”

“Sofa, Sherlock. It was the _sofa_.”

“Oh, right, of course.” Sherlock beamed at his brother, obviously reminiscing this lovely moment when he had finally had his brother where he had wanted him.

John, feeling a little proud that he had deduced correctly that it had been Sherlock who had pursued this forbidden relationship first, supposed that Mycroft had stood no chance in the long run. He might have refused Sherlock for a long time because he had probably felt guilty for desiring his little brother, and because he must have known it could backfire greatly at them. And he was sure that they had never told anybody about it. And now they had confided in him! It was hard not to be proud of that. Sherlock really wouldn’t have had to manipulate him into assuring them that it was okay with him. But these smart men always underestimated him after all…

“His cock is so huge I almost choked on it,” Sherlock said, dreamily, and John suppressed the urge to clamp his hand over his mouth. Or _Sherlock's_ , actually…

“Sherlock… Can’t you see John feels uncomfortable about you sharing such information? And I don’t like my traits to be bragged about, either, thank you very much,” chided Mycroft.

“Oh, really?” Sherlock was all wide and innocent eyes, and John and Mycroft actually sighed simultaneously when they realised in the same moment that they were both being wound up by a decidedly bratty Sherlock.

Sherlock yelped again when his plush behind was unceremoniously pinched. But he just laughed. “You are too cute, the pair of you. So… Now that we are clear… Would you mind watching some telly while Mycroft and I are fucking in my room?”

“Sherlock!” came out of two mouths, and the detective rolled his eyes.

“Spoilsports.” He took off his shirt with deft movements and unzipped his trousers while sliding off his brother’s lap. “Coming, Mycroft?” he asked casually while walking out of the room with wantonly wiggling hips.

Mycroft sighed and looked at John, who had almost choked on his tongue at this display of cheekiness and provocation. “The things I have to keep up with, Doctor Watson.”

“I don’t envy you,” answered John, full of conviction, and Mycroft actually grinned at that, and John didn’t miss the flicker of relief in his eyes.

Oh. So Mycroft had not only feared he could object to their forbidden relationship. He had also considered that John might want Sherlock for himself. How many more times did he have to tell people that he wasn’t gay? It was hopeless.

When Sherlock’s bedroom door had closed behind both brothers, John sat down in his armchair and pulled out his phone. And he caught himself listening if there was anything to hear from Sherlock's chamber. And he realised he was wishing he was a fly on the wall.

Damn… Yeah… He wasn’t gay. Nor bi. Not even bi-curious as they called it. He had never wanted anything sexual from Sherlock, let alone Mycroft.

But he wouldn’t have minded watching.

Holmeses. Fucking with everybody’s brains… And with each other, of course… He got up, took his jacket, and left the flat. He would go see a nice film. A film to erase the pictures that suggested themselves. Perhaps he would even meet some nice girl to have his own fun with.

On the street he turned around and looked up to 221B, and he saw Sherlock standing at the window, his chest naked, and Mycroft was standing behind him, and Sherlock winked at him before he turned and obviously pushed his brother onto his bed.

John grinned and shook his head. Living with Sherlock was a lot of things but it would certainly never get boring.


	7. "Get Off My Sheet!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just a short drabble, a twist in canon, set in the original scene of the quote from "Scandal In Belgravia". A much better version of this has been written by my dear SlytherinsDragon :)

“Get off my sheet!” hissed Sherlock.

“I don’t think so. Behave! And get dressed!” Mycroft was at the end of his tether.

Sherlock snorted and turned to him. “Strange. Usually you always tell me to get naked.”

Mycroft gasped and looked at Harry the Equerry. “I have to apologise for my little brother.” Such appalling behaviour by his Sub!

The tall man smiled nonchalantly. “Full-time occupation indeed.”

“Oh, you have no idea.” He turned and ripped the sheet from Sherlock's body to place a smarting smack on this inviting bum.

The detective yowled and Harry nodded approvingly. “That might be the only way to deal with such disobedience. Don’t you think so as a soldier, Doctor Watson?”

The doctor was opening and closing his mouth like a fish but nothing came out.

“This is appalling!” complained Sherlock.

Mycroft grabbed him by the arm and manhandled him over to the couch, where he sat down and draped his brother over his lap. “I’ll show you to embarrass me in front of an old friend! In bloody Buckingham Palace!” And with this he landed blow after blow on these wobbling globes, making Sherlock yelp and howl and struggle with arms and legs most dramatically, as if this action was in any way new to him.

John was still standing in the middle of the large room, looking like a child that had been left alone at a train station, his face a mask of total confusion. But even in this sorry state he seemed to realise that he was witnessing some sort of thoroughly rehearsed game, not an older brother who had suddenly lost it and had gone mental and was a threat now to everybody in the room, especially his insolent little brother.

Harry looked pointedly at his watch. Yes. They had a timetable.

Mycroft was finished after delivering twenty of his best anyway. He admired the sight. Pale cheeks, decorated with lovely red welts that would remind Sherlock for a few days that being a brat didn’t pay out. “Get up now and get dressed. We have matters to discuss.”

Grumbling, Sherlock scrambled from his lap. Mycroft sighed when his brother didn’t even try to cover his prominent erection. He had always gotten off on a bit of punishment. “Sherlock…”

“It’s not my fault,” hissed his brother. “You put a finger in my arse!”

“That was an accident,” lied Mycroft.

John’s face was so red now that Mycroft feared his head would explode anytime now. These stains would be horrible to remove.

“As if,” snorted Sherlock, but he finally grabbed for his clothes. “Tell me about the stupid case for your stupid Queen then,” he impolitely demanded, making both Mycroft and Harry gasp. “John. Do sit down and stop impersonating a carp. You are making me nervous.” He hastily got dressed and let himself drop into a chair himself.

The doctor had joined them when Mycroft showed Sherlock the photographs of the dominatrix.

Sherlock grimaced. “Yuck! Why are you showing me that? If you need to show me nude pictures, make some of yourself!”

Mycroft smiled, feeling flattered. “It’s not as if you had not already seen every inch of my body about a million times.”

“True. But still…” He threw the printouts onto the table. “Disgusting.”

Mycroft saw John staring at him and Sherlock and then at Harry, as if he was waiting for a shocked reaction by the man who had welcomed them in Buckingham Palace. Harry sipped at his tea. Mycroft smiled to himself before he explained the Baker Street Boys the case of Irene Adler. Sherlock rolled his eyes several times before he got up, grimaced a bit and exclaimed that he would bring them the photographs later today. “If I can’t deduce where they are to steal them, John will strangle her until she gives them to us,” he said in a bored tone, and the doctor nodded.

Sometimes this short, aggressive man was really helpful, Mycroft thought. He pulled Sherlock into his arms and kissed him soundly on the lips. “I want to see you later in my bed.”

“You can bet on that. I have something for you to lick better.”

“Can’t wait. Doctor Watson.”

The man looked decidedly shaken again. But he nodded. “Mycroft.” His voice was only slightly shivering, one had to give him that.

The detective and his blogger left the room, and John was staring at Sherlock inquiringly, but Sherlock ignored him, flouncing about as arrogantly as ever.

Sherlock had been right. It had been time to confide in him. The truth about his and Sherlock's relationship had taken him off guard but it was very unlikely that he would not accept it.

He turned to Harry. “See you and Jordan at the club this weekend?” Harry's boyfriend was a lord. A very tasty one - not that he would have mentioned that towards Sherlock. Again...

“Oh, of course. Sherlock coming too?”

Mycroft grinned. “As if he let his Master go to such places on his own. He would die of jealousy.”

They chuckled together, and then Mycroft excused himself to go back to Whitehall. Little brother was occupied and tamed for now, and later Mycroft would tend to his welts. Life was beautiful.


	8. “All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock mourns his dead friend John. Mycroft comforts him. Top Mycroft, bottom Sherlock.  
> Probably the most famous quote from Mycroft, taken from "A Scandal In Belgravia".

Standing at the living room window of 221B, looking out without really registering the cars and people down there, Sherlock is waiting. Waiting for his brother to speak the words he’s had coming.

He winces when two arms are slung around his waist and a kiss is brushed onto his ear. “Not going to say it, Sherlock. No matter what you may think of me – I’m not that cruel.”

Sherlock relaxes into the embrace and to his surprise, a smile is pulling at his lips on this black day. “It’s either that – or you just don't want to be predictable.”

“Got me. We are both vain in the end.”

“Considering your preference for the most expensive suits available, that is certainly true for you.”

Mycroft chuckles and Sherlock smiles again. Of course he knows that this has been his lover’s aim. Make it a tad easier for him. Brighten up his mood just a bit on the day of John Watson’s funeral.

“I have to find them, Mycroft. I have to know who did that.” Mrs Hudson had been crying bitter tears when the coffin had been lowered into the earth. So had Harry, whom Sherlock had met for the first time at all. She had given him a long, accusative look and refused to say a word to him.

“Of course. And I will help you in any way I can.”

Naturally, Sherlock has already tried to find who had beaten down John from behind in that shabby street. John had sent him a cryptic text – and then nothing anymore. Sherlock had been busy with a case for Lestrade while John had been working at the clinic. Something had happened when his friend had finished his shift and left the safety of his work place, something that had led him to this place where he died, but Sherlock has found no sign of it so far. And frankly – he has been too shocked to fully focus on it since it had happened. Had John gone on a chase alone to impress him? Or had he thought that this case was so easy to solve that he wouldn’t have to bother him with it? Nobody had called him, so much is sure. It is a mystery but one he has to solve, of course.

He closes his eyes when Mycroft's embrace tightens – a sign for him to let go for now, to allow himself a moment of weakness before he can seriously get to work.

The words Mycroft has spared him are still ghosting through his mind.

_All lives end._

_All hearts are broken._

_Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock._

He can hear them spoken in his brother’s soft voice as if he had actually said them. He has done so a few times in his life, for one reason or another. And Sherlock has never faced a loss like this before. His best friend, who has saved his very life more than once.

Suddenly his eyes are wet. No sound escapes his mouth and still Mycroft understands at once.

“Come, little brother.”

It is madness. Mrs Hudson could come back. Lestrade could drop by. But he follows his brother to his bedroom, craving a sort of comfort only Mycroft can give him.

*****

Mycroft is taking him the way he needs it. They didn’t have to talk about it. His brother is covering his body with his own, loving him with deep thrusts while Sherlock is clinging to him, his face buried in the crook of his man’s neck. He doesn’t waste time wondering if it’s indecent to feel such pleasure while grieving for his best friend. It is like being infused with comfort and love. Mycroft has not undressed – he has only taken off his jacket and shoved his trousers and pants to his knees so his zip won’t scratch him up. Sherlock is naked as this is his flat and his bedroom – if someone shows up, he will just put on his dressing gown. But Mycroft has to be able to get dressed instantly. Sherlock doesn’t mind. In fact, it feels tremendously hot to feel the expensive fabric of his brother’s clothes against his bare skin. It reminds him of his fantasies about making love to him in his office.

Perhaps he has gone mad to think about that now. Perhaps it is a normal reaction for someone who has just lost such an integral part of his life. Perhaps he is just very happy that he still has Mycroft. In a very literal way right now. And if he’d had to choose which of the two men he’d rather lose, well, he would have picked John, no doubt about it.

“Fuck me harder,” he begs. He needs to stop thinking.

“Doing my best, brother mine.” Mycroft does increase his pace and soon Sherlock finds himself on the road to completion.

He craves the moment when his brain will fully shut down – even if it’s only for a few seconds. He comes with Mycroft still inside him, his cock spends between their bodies in violent spurts. He bites down on Mycroft's shoulder and is rewarded with a curse and a few heavy eruptions into his intestines. They pant through their orgasms together and Mycroft collapses into the mess between their bodies.

“Your waistcoat won’t survive that,” Sherlock mumbles, wondering why neither of them has thought about that before.

“No worries.” Mycroft pulls out and grabs a package of wet wipes from his jacket pocket. He cleans Sherlock's opening and torso up and then tends to his groin and his clothes. “See. All gone already.”

“You’ll be reeking of sex.”

Mycroft quickly pulls up his boxers and suit trousers. “I have spare clothes in my office, Sherlock. Only Anthea will see me in these ones.”

Anthea. Who has never been told about their secret relationship but knows about it without a doubt. The most loyal woman in the world – well, she and Mrs Hudson.

“Don’t worry,” Mycroft says and his voice is so gentle that Sherlock has to swallow.

He had never thought he would ever be loved like this. So unconditionally and deeply. “Thank you,” he mumbles, unable to utter what he really feels.

Mycroft sits down on the bed and Sherlock embraces him, shuddering when he feels Mycroft's arms around his waist. “Always, little brother. If you need me, I’ll always be just a phone call away.” He reluctantly gets up. “I should better leave now. If you can, come to me tonight.”

“I definitely will.”

They kiss, and then Mycroft leaves to go back to the office. Sherlock heads into the bathroom and stays under the hot spray for fifteen minutes. When he is dressed again, he hears his landlady returning. He will have to talk to her for a while, then rest a bit – and then, refreshed, he will start searching for clues. He will find whoever has killed John and make sure whoever it was will never see another sunset. It’s what he owes John.

And he knows he can always return to big brother. Even in his grief, there is lightness, and its name is Mycroft.


	9. "You're A Very Stupid Little Boy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "His Last Vow". Two grown men playing with underage attraction. Smut and some angst and general silliness.

“That was really good work, Sherlock. Thank you.”

The detective gave him a lazy but smug smile. “I suppose there’s a cheque coming?” He looked positively edible in his light blue shirt, tight enough to see a nipple on the side that wasn’t covered by his open coat. His cheeks had a healthy blush and his hair was fetchingly tousled from the wind.

“Of course. Has the government ever not paid you for your assistance?” Mycroft tapped his fingers on his desk, looking appreciatively at the folder in which he had found Sherlock's solution for the very difficult case he and Doctor Watson had taken care of.

Sherlock shrugged. “It’s John who insists on getting paid. I would do it just for you.”

Mycroft would have been touched if he hadn’t known that Sherlock never did anything for free. Certainly not for him. It was just not money he craved as a reward… “Of course,” he said nonetheless, smiling at his brother, who was lounging in the visitor’s chair as if he was sitting in his living room. “It’s a shame, that low army pension. Our veterans deserve better!”

Sherlock chuckled. “Mockery is unbecoming, Mycroft. So…”

“So?” Mycroft gave him a friendly smile.

Sherlock suddenly bent forward, his blue-green eyes sparkling. “You owe me.”

“Well, we just spoke about your-…”

“Not that.” Sherlock made a dismissive gesture. “You owe me some… reward.”

Didn’t he know it.. Mycroft opened his mouth to play innocent again but Sherlock stopped him with an impatient gesture.

“A physical one.”

“Oh. I see. Well, then I suppose we have a date tonight? At my place?” They hadn’t spent any quality time with each other for days. It was about time to renew their unbrotherly bond.

“We do,” agreed Sherlock. “Text me when you’re allowed to shake off your shackles for the day.”

“I will. Any special wishes? Anything to prepare?” He gulped when Sherlock's expression turned predatory.

“Well, since you’re asking… No, nothing to prepare for you, apart from yourself.”

“Oh.” So Sherlock wanted to top him? Probably an enema was due then. Not that he minded. He liked to be on his back, his legs draped over Sherlock's shoulders, not having to do anything.

Sherlock sighed. “Jumping to totally wrong conclusions, brother mine. Slipping once more. No, I meant you need to prepare yourself _mentally_.”

A roleplay then. What would it be this time? Sherlock was so creative at these things. Mycroft suddenly paled when he saw that horrifying twinkle in his brother’s eyes. “No, Sherlock. Not that again!”

“What? What do you mean – _again_? We never did it!”

“For a reason. It’s… appalling. Look, I could be your… boss or something. I will even play Lestrade and you can tell me how stupid I am before you fuck me against the wall.”

It was Sherlock's turn to pale. “I don’t fancy Lestrade! Are you mad? No. You will be my… big brother.”

“I am.”

Sherlock grinned triumphantly. “Exactly. It’s big brother fucking little brother. Nothing new whatsoever.”

Mycroft made a last attempt at talking himself out of it. “I could be… let’s say twenty-five and you eighteen.”

“Nice try. If you remember, I was not that much older when we did start…”

“You were twenty-three!” Eight years ago…

Sherlock nodded. “Only because you refused to indulge me sooner.”

That was true. Sherlock had nagged and begged and laid traps for about four years until Mycroft had finally given in. He had never not wanted to do it. But he had wanted to protect them both. And their brotherly relationship, which would have gone downhill for good if their romantic relationship had not worked out. But it had, and the rest was, as they said, history.

“It will be awful.”

Sherlock tilted his head. “Oh, I don’t think so. It will be hot. You’ll love it.”

Mycroft closed his eyes. In fact, he feared that he would… “But I will feel so _dirty_ afterwards.”

“Yes! It will be marvellous!”

“You’re a sadist!” accused Mycroft, but Sherlock just laughed.

“No. I’m just your _baby_ brother…”

“God help me…”

“I don’t think so.” Sherlock got up and walked around the desk. “See you later, big brother.” He bent down and claimed Mycroft's lips in a devilishly passionate kiss, and Mycroft all but melted on his chair.

When Sherlock was gone – all flapping coat and triumph and excited anticipation – Mycroft tried to focus on the latest MI5 report but it was decidedly difficult to concentrate on dry words. If he was honest, he couldn’t wait to get his hands and lips and more on his bratty brother. And Sherlock just knew that all-too-well…

*****

 _Oh my God…_ Mycroft stared at the man who was his little brother – usually as elegant as they got, his clothes made of the finest fabric. And now that he had taken off his coat, he had revealed a… jumper?! Nicked from the doctor, obviously. It was way too short for him, revealing a stripe of pale skin above his skinny jeans. And since when did Sherlock even own a pair of trainers?!

“Oh, Sherlock…”

Sherlock had not said a word so far but now he beamed at him while literally batting his eyelashes at him. And what nice, long eyelashes they were… “Hello Mycwoft!” he breathed in a rather high-pitched voice. “You happy to fee me, big bwova?” He stepped into Mycroft's personal space and threw his arms around his neck.

“No, Sherlock. I refuse to…” Very unsurprisingly, he was shut up with a hungry kiss, and he wondered why he had tried putting up as much opposition at all. He knew a losing game when he saw one. So when Sherlock only stopped plundering his mouth to drag him to the stairs, he accepted his fate and followed along because there was nothing else to do. Childish talking or not, pretending to be god-knew-how-old or not – this was still his very adult brother, whom he had never desired when he had still been a child so it was nothing but a rather foolish game his brother found sexy whatever reason. Nothing to bother about!

*****

Sherlock suppressed a grin when he scrambled up the bed, towards his brother, who was leaning against the backrest of the bed – two pillows serving as cushions – with a book in his hands. The British Government looked rather uncomfortable and nervous. Good. It was so much fun to wind up _The-One-Who-Is-Always-In-Control_ a bit. It might appear a bit malicious to play with Mycroft's guilty feelings about desiring his little brother but it was really time to finally get rid of the barest hints of them. He’d had years to shake them off after all but sometimes they still came through. The worst times had always been when they had to visit their parents for one of Mummy’s annoying birthday- or Christmas parties. She always invited some ‘nice young men’ – in the beginning it had been _girls_ which had been even worse and had led to a some highly embarrassing conversations about her son’s sexual orientation – and it was hard to miss that Mycroft always thought that Sherlock could – and, even worse: _should_ – fall for one of them to perhaps have a chance at a ‘normal’ life. Why his brother even considered that Sherlock could be interested in something that boring was beyond him. He had never wanted anyone else and that would never change. He only tried to play nice for a while to please Mummy – and what an annoying fact of life was it that his mother still only had to give him a displeased look to make him feel like a guilty little boy again – but latest when the respective guy tried to get tactile, he left no doubt that he was not available for this shit. Since he tended to deduce the man’s weaknesses and tear him to shreds by throwing them into their faces, it was easy to get rid of them, but Mycroft had always been pensive and kind of sad afterwards, and Sherlock did not like that one bit.

Yes, it did suck that he and the man he really loved couldn’t be open about their relationship but it was what it was. Thank God, they hardly had to endure Mummy’s futile attempts to match them up with others anymore but Sherlock felt they had to erase every hint of guilt about their forbidden relationship. It was forbidden for reasons that had nothing to do with them and the only way to deal with this was to make fun of it. And roleplay was always a good way to mock this kind of senseless guilty feelings. Mycroft had somehow never really understood that but he always played along to please him.

He did not look very pleased now but tough chance – he had to endure it now to get to the fun and amusement. This particular roleplay was meant to overdo the brother-brother aspect of their love in an entertaining way. And yeah – perhaps Sherlock had some sort of big brother (or perhaps rather daddy-) kink and liked to play with it.

“Watcha doing, bwova?” he breathed, trying to sound and move less like a predator and more like an actual boy.

“I…,” Mycroft cleared his throat, “I’m trying to read a book. Kindly go into your own bed, Sherlock.”

Ah. Adapting to the game easier than expected! “Don’t wanna,” sniffled Sherlock, shaking his head and making his curls bounce.

He crawled into the inviting space between his brother’s thighs. Mycroft – like Sherlock himself – was wearing pyjamas – nice, silky, expensive ones, and his large bulge was hard to miss under the thin fabric. And his wiry chest fur was poking out of the not quite closed top. He looked absolutely edible and Sherlock found it was hard to follow the game instead of just wrapping his sexy brother out of his posh clothes and ravishing him.

But the game was on, and a very cheesy one, and he was all for it even though it meant to postpone getting to the goodies.

He reached out and rummaged in the slit of the pyjama pants. No underwear was blocking his way when he quickly pulled out the fat, dark-pink cock.

“Sherlock!” protested a red-faced Mycroft. “What are you doing?!”

 _As if you didn’t know…_ Sherlock suppressed a smirk. “Is dis your pee-man?”

“My… what?!”

It was hard not to laugh but Sherlock managed to keep a straight face. “It’s so _big_! Oh! And it’s twitching!” It was doing so indeed, the large, juicy organ.

“Put it back!” demanded Mycroft, his hand cramping into the sheets.

He was playing his role really well. Sherlock did of course nothing like that. Instead he clumsily stroked up and down the mighty piece of meat. “Oh, it’s getting bigger!”

“Let that be, Sherlock. It’s indecent and wrong and Mummy will be very cross.”

They both grimaced involuntarily at the mention of their mother. “Why?” Sherlock asked, wide-eyed and innocently.

“Because brothers don’t do that. It’s nasty.”

“ _He_ doesn’t find it nasty,” Sherlock chuckled, totally forgetting to speak in this childish voice.

“Enough!” thundered Mycroft. “I will not have you do such… wrong things to me. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Do though. You like it.”

“You have no idea what I like. You’re just a stupid child.”

“Not!” protested Sherlock. Suddenly _he_ was feeling uncomfortable as this game seemed to backfire at him. Mycroft had sounded so serious even though of course he was just playing the game. And hadn’t Sherlock always felt stupid compared to him? Long before he had begun to consider his brother as a sexual being, a desirable one, he had admired him for his flawless intellect. Practically from the day he had been able to think at all… And had felt as if he could never live up to this. As if Mycroft was looking down at him. That sentence had brought these feelings back in an instant.

“You’re a very stupid little boy,” Mycroft said again, obviously not sensing his sudden change of mood. “Thinking you can tease and provoke your big brother.”

“I am though,” Sherlock mumbled, pushing the unpleasant memories aside. The last thing he wanted to achieve was spoiling the mood with long-gone feelings of not being adequate, not being enough. Not smart enough, not enough in control of himself. And that had only gotten worse when Mycroft had been away from home and Sherlock had found nothing else to distract himself from the hole Mycroft had left in his life but taking drugs, which had made Mycroft say even more hurtful things – out of anxiety, not malice as Sherlock very well knew but had not gotten back then… This phase had ended after two years though – when he had finally understood what he really wanted from his brother, and then he had immediately started working on getting him, which had taken him a lot longer than he had anticipated. Nasty decent brother. Lovely brother... Who hopefully didn’t still think deep inside that Sherlock was a stupid boy… Damn… He should have rethought that roleplay obviously…

Mycroft tilted his head. “You okay, little brother?”

Of course he wouldn’t miss that for long… But actually he was – okay. This was Mycroft, _his_ Mycroft, and he loved him and vice versa and it was all fine. “Mm-hm.” Sherlock bit his bottom lip and pulled at Mycroft's heavy sack. “Why are you so hairy? Will I be like that, too, when I grow up?”

Mycroft grimaced. “No. You will always stay smooth and silky. Never getting a hairy beast.”

Sherlock couldn’t help but smile, his heart making a flip. “I did get it though,” he said, cheekily. He felt silly about letting Mycroft's playful remark get to him. Mycroft had never known how inadequate he had made Sherlock feel. Sherlock had always hidden his hurt behind some seriously ghastly behaviour. And Mycroft had his own sore spots – like regarding himself as the less handsome of the two of them, which was totally stupid in Sherlock's eyes. They looked very different but both of them were attractive in their own peculiar way, and Sherlock had a particularly soft spot for Mycroft's hairy torso. It was hot as hell as far as he was concerned. Just like every other part of his beautiful brother. One should have thought that he had made this very clear to Mycroft over the years but old scars were hard to heal…

“Brat,” Mycroft mumbled, fondly. “What am I going to do with insolent little boys who like to play with my cock?”

“Show them their place?” Sherlock suggested, eager to get to the really nice part of the game now.

“Yeah. I think I should. Undress. Show your big brother your rosy little hole.”

Oooh. This mood shift was very welcome… But of course Sherlock had to play his part. “Why? You said it was wrong?”

“Yes, it is naughty and only bad people do that. But you’ve brought it over yourself. Down with your pants now and show me.”

Sherlock turned around and wiggled himself out of his pyjama pants, exposing his pink hole to his brother’s scrutiny. Feeling Mycroft stare at his opening sent some delightfully electric shivers down his spine, and when a finger probed at his entrance, a gasp escaped his mouth.

“Yes, just as I thought. Baby bro is so eager to feel my finger in his wrinkled little hole, isn’t he?”

“Oh yes,” breathed Sherlock, moving backwards so Mycroft’s fingertip just so slid past his first ring of muscles – thank God Mycroft always had perfectly manicured fingernails. It did sting a bit though as his hole was dry but Sherlock welcomed the sensation.

“So shameless,” chided Mycroft.

And then Sherlock was urged to straddle his brother’s face, and he almost keeled over when a hot tongue licked a wet stripe across his cleft. “Mycroft!”

“Yes. That’s what horny little brothers like, huh? Big brother licking their sweet, innocent hole.”

“Oh, yes,” Sherlock brought out, and then he handed himself over to big brother’s capable tongue, and hands, and, eventually, cock.

*****

Did little brother really think Mycroft looked down his nose at him for real? Seriously? Mycroft had not shown his surprise about the deduction he had made. He was better at hiding his feelings than Sherlock ever gave him credit for. Usually he didn’t do it though. He didn’t want any emotional barriers between them. But he knew that Sherlock would have felt embarrassed if he had addressed this topic even with so much as an amazed look.

Of course he did nothing like that. When had he given Sherlock reason to think so? Certainly not after those awful drug-times, when Sherlock's recklessness and preference for unnecessary self-harm had taken over. But Sherlock was, as much as he pretended to be so aloof and cool, a very sensitive person, and such feelings lingered. Mycroft knew that all-too-well. And Sherlock seemed to think that he still felt guilty about wanting him, hence this charade of pretending to be a boy. Damn… They really should do more talking about such touchy subjects when the time was right. It wasn’t now… Now it was time to show baby brother that he did desire him, massively, and that no stupid law and dated morals were allowed to get in the way.

He had taken his time with eating him out, one of his most favourite things to do. Naughty and messy it was, and Mycroft was known to be prim and proper, but sex was an exception. Sex with Sherlock, that is. He had never licked and lapped at another man’s entrance, had never shoved his tongue inside another man other than wiggling and shivering and cursing baby brother. He had never parted another man’s cheeks and looked admiringly at the glistening, wrinkled skin around his heftily twitching entrance, begging him to enter. And he had never slid into anyone with so much hunger and will to please, and he grabbed Sherlock's hips and gave him what he desired, rocking into him doggy-style with full force after a period of letting him get adjusted to the intrusion. They really were like one person in this moment, connected as intimately as possible, merging with their brains and hearts and bodies.

They reached their crisis within just a few seconds from one another. Mycroft spilled deep inside his brother’s body and continued to stroke until Sherlock followed him over the edge, coming untouched, and then he manoeuvred him onto the bed so he wouldn’t collapse into the mess he had made, still lodged inside him.

He buried his face in the crook of Sherlock's neck, inhaling the sweet smell of fresh sweat and body wash. “My little brother is the smartest man on earth,” he mumbled, his arms wrapped around the detective from behind.

Sherlock smiled. “No. _You_ are.”

“Mm-hm. Okay, he’s the second smartest man.”

“I can live with that.”

“I love you, darling.”

“Love you, too, big bwova.”

They chuckled together, and Mycroft knew that he would play any game that Sherlock wanted to play as long as he was allowed to always make this point – he loved him, and he adored him, and nothing was going to change that. Not ever.


	10. "I Was In The Middle Of A Case, Mycroft."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "A Scandal In Belgravia". POV John Watson.

The past few days had been crazy. Travelling to Scotland and then to Wales for a murderer who had obviously decided to leave a trace of decapitated corpses all over the UK. Now they were back and they had hardly had time to unpack their bags when Lestrade had called with the next gruesome murder.

John yawned. He had been in the army long enough and was used to not getting much sleep but the past few days had been exceptionally exhausting.

Not for Sherlock though, obviously. He was stalking around the victim with eyes sparkling with interest, delivering a monologue of dozens of deductions per minute. John didn’t even try to follow along, and Lestrade was scratching his head, looking more puzzled by the second. It was strange enough that he still tried to make sense of Sherlock's conclusions after more than five years of witnessing the genius at his crime scenes while John had given up on that after less than three months of being a part of Sherlock's life. It was what it was – they were all idiots compared to Sherlock and it was futile to even try to keep up with him. In the end, Sherlock would roll his eyes and throw his hands into the air at their slowness and stupidity and tell them where to find the killer. Why he even bothered to show off to morons like them was beyond John but he did enjoy watching Sherlock in action. Not after two hours of sleep in the past twenty-four hours though… It was a bit annoying, actually.

“Do you understand how brilliant this killer is?!” Sherlock cried out now, gesturing dangerously. “He is so much brighter than-…” And then he stopped abruptly as a dark limousine with black windows was all but racing towards them.

John cursed himself for not bringing his gun. Was this an attack? Was the killer they were looking for coming after them? He was alert and ready to strike back – and then the car stopped directly next to them. And Sherlock sighed and Lestrade bit his lip and rubbed his nose. Neither of them seemed alarmed in any way.

John understood why when a tall figure emerged out of the car that he should have recognised at once, carrying his trademark umbrella and showing an expression that was hard to describe – exasperation and sourness as usual, but there was something else, too.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the British Government snarled. “I see you are back, brother mine.”

John noticed a slight and weird emphasis on the last word, as well as a rather accusatory tone in general, and looked at his flatmate, waiting for the expected snarky reply. Whenever he had seen the brothers interact so far, there had been loads of mutual resentment, a smug, unbearable Mycroft and a Sherlock who was as bratty as they got – archenemies indeed.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I’ve been in the middle of a case, Mycroft. I had no time to… drop by.”

“Yes, I understood as much.” Mycroft still sounded displeased and his icy-blue eyes had a fierce expression.

Wait, what? John furrowed his brow in confusion. He looked at Greg but the DI was staring down at his shoes as if they were of particular interest to him, perhaps even holding all the answers to the big questions of the universe.

“Excuse us for a moment,” Mycroft said now, pointing at the limousine.

The detective swallowed and looked at John, his usually pale cheeks slightly reddened. Then he shrugged. “Yeah. Be right back.” And with this, he followed his brother into the car and slammed the door shut behind him.

John huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “What the fu-… Can you tell me what’s going on here?”

Greg shrugged. “Forget it. Let’s grab a coffee and come back in half an hour. Donovan has secured the crime scene pretty well so…”

The copper was not even surprised. Not a bit. This had clearly happened before. Not in John’s presence though. He might not be the proud owner of a mind palace, not even a mind _barn_ or a mind _dog basket_ but he would certainly remember such an occurrence… “Tell me.”

“There is nothing to tell. It happens from time to time, usually when Sherlock has been away or extremely busy.”

Away or very busy. Too far away or too occupied to… pay his brother a visit? And certainly not to glare at him or roll his eyes and give snarky replies to whatever Mycroft ordered him to do. These… deductions led to what exactly now? And then John got it, and it almost blew him out of his shoes. “Woah, wait. You are not telling me that they are” – John made a pretty rude gesture with his hands – “… in there?!” He pointed at the car with his thumb.

Greg shook his head vehemently and John was relieved – for a second until his friend said, “No, I am absolutely not _telling_ you that.”

 _Probably because he doesn’t want to end in an anonymous grave in the woods_ , John thought vaguely before all the implications hit him like a brick. All this bickering and antagonism had been nothing more than a bloody show?! They pretended to basically hate each other’s guts to hide that they were in fact in an incestuous relationship? He remembered very well how Mycroft had kidnapped and interrogated him on the first day he had been spending with Sherlock. Not because he wanted to know if he was trustworthy as he had thought, oh no. He had been fucking _jealous_! And… They were seriously having sex in that government car right now?! And this was happening because Mycroft had been without his lover/brother for too long and wouldn’t even wait until Sherlock had finished solving this case and could visit him secretly?

“Guess it was a matter of urgency,” mumbled Lestrade as if he had read John’s thought.

John swallowed. How the fuck was he supposed to deal with that? And how did Greg do it? “You’re the police,” he mumbled. “And you are okay with that?”

“They are adults,” Greg said, his face serious. “And do _you_ want to tell them it’s forbidden and they can’t do something like that?”

“Point taken…” That would certainly not go down well. And yes. They were adults. They were both male. And they had both personalities the common population would never understand and intellects nobody else could even hope to live up to. It did make sense. A lot, actually. He had thought that Sherlock was not interested in physical pleasures, and of course Sherlock had deliberately let him believe that, saying that he considered himself married to his work when he had – mistakenly – thought that John was trying to get into his pants… Well, Mycroft certainly was some serious piece of work… John couldn’t suppress a grin. “Half an hour?” he asked. “That long?”

Greg sensed his acceptance and grinned, too. “You two were away for _days_. Half an hour _at least_.”

John did wonder about the driver of this car. And God… That woman who had called herself ‘Anthea’ was not in there, too, was she?! Well, probably she _was_ the driver… Whoever it was clearly knew about this special relationship and was used to keep silent about it… Who wanted to mess with Mr Power and Mr High-Functioning-Sociopath after all? They were scary enough on their own, but combined they had to be a true nightmare nobody would want to mess with… And perhaps Mycroft had chosen this time and place to appear not only because he had been sorely missing his brother but also because he had not liked the fact that Sherlock had gone away with John for days and wanted to show him who the curly-haired menace really belonged to… Silly sod, being jealous of a straight and, compared to him, moronic little man… But kind of cute, too.

“Coffee sounds good,” John said, and he chuckled when he imagined how Sherlock would leave the car later, tousled and heated, with kiss-swollen lips and all relaxed because he had come… Damn… Mycroft might have been right that he was missing the war. But living with Sherlock was much more interesting than even this time of his life had been, and that was definitely a good thing.


	11. “So, you’re off now? I won’t see you for a week?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quote taken from "The Lying Detective". Mycroft says that to, gulp, Lady Smallwood. I'll never forgive Moffat for hinting at a romance between those two. This Holmescest version is a bit angsty but also a bit smutty and fluffy.

Mycroft sighed and closed his bag, which was seated on a chair next to his bed. “Don’t pout, brother mine. I wish I didn’t have to do it.”

“You _don’t_ , actually,” Sherlock retorted. “You’re the _boss_. Send one of your minions.”

Sometimes Sherlock did challenge his patience and indulgence. Like when they were discussing something for the sixth time… “You know it doesn’t work like this. I have to take part in it myself. I’m the only one who can-…”

“Yes, yes. Just leave. Will be great to not see you for God knows how long…”

Mycroft’s heart melted. Little brother was not being deliberately difficult. He was simply sad and knew he would be missing him. So would Mycroft, of course – missing his astonishing lover and partner. They had made love in the evening and fallen asleep together and shared a long hot shower before a quick breakfast. It was hard to leave him, especially in such a mood. “It will only be a week, Sherlock.” Which was long enough of course.

“Yes, you’re saying that _now_ ,” Sherlock mumbled, stubbornly. “But it will get prolonged as all these idiots will never reach any agreement during this fucking conference and then you will have meetings about it and have to catch up on your work and-…” He stopped lamenting when Mycroft stepped into his personal space to embrace him.

It always felt so good to wrap his arms around baby brother’s stone-hard waist, feeling the muscles work under the thin fabric of his tight shirt. “I won’t let that happen. My work will be done while I’m away. By myself wherever possible.” He wouldn’t get much sleep during that week as he would have to get up extra early to read and work on his reports that would still be sent to him.

Sherlock nodded with a grimace. “Sure, nobody can be trusted to do your job except you.”

Mycroft took a deep breath. “Would you let John solve your cases without you?”

“No.” Sherlock huffed. “That’s not the same though.”

“Oh, is it not? Because solving cases is so difficult and trying to prevent our country from going downhill is such an easy task?” Mycroft regretted his outburst instantly – he knew where his brother’s words were coming from and getting into a confrontation would only make things worse.

And of course Sherlock glowered at him and shook off his hands. “I know you despise my job but it’s important for me, you know?”

Mycroft immediately grabbed him again. “So is mine, love. I’m sorry. And you know I don’t despise your work, not in the least.” In the beginning he had been shocked and relieved in equal measures that his brilliant baby brother chose to solve crimes for a living when he could do so much more – like getting high all the time as he had done before… Dealing with scum was certainly beneath a man with Sherlock's intellect but it did keep him from drugging himself into the ground. And Mycroft had long taken to be very proud of Sherlock's achievements. “You are doing a great job and that’s what I’m trying to do as well.”

“Yeah. Will be lonely without you,” Sherlock mumbled, under his breath, and Mycroft instinctively searched for his lips to shower them with kisses.

He hated to leave Sherlock, even if it was only for seven days. He was glad that Sherlock went all pliant in his grip now and returned the kiss. “Come,” he said then. “Let’s go back to bed for a shag you will still be feeling when I return.” Hadn’t he known it would lead to this? Yes. Had he timed his leave so he could indulge baby brother once more? Of course.

That finally brought a smile to these bow-like lips. “Don’t you have to leave?”

“Soon. We’ll be quick. And thorough.”

“Wish I could come with you,” Sherlock admitted, and Mycroft stroked over his curly hair.

“I wish that, too.” These were the true downsides of living a forbidden relationship. Sherlock could not accompany him as his partner. They had to be extremely discreet about this. Not even Sherlock's close friends knew about them and it had to remain like this. Sherlock had only been able to stay overnight because John had been at his new girlfriend’s place. “We’ll be having lots of video calls.” During the nights, of course, when they would both be undisturbed. Which meant even less sleep for him but it would be worth it if it made them both suffer a little less…

Sherlock nodded, his eyes serious again. “Sure.” He started to unbutton his shirt he had only put on half an hour ago. “Show me what you can do in the sadly short time we still have.”

“I can do a lot,” promised Mycroft.

*****

Oh, yes, he really could, thought Sherlock, lying on a bunch of pillows on his brother’s bed, while Mycroft was reducing him to a quivering mess with his hands and lips and teeth. Big brother was still fully dressed, with his driver waiting for him in front of the house. Or – had he foreseen Sherlock's little tantrum and the driver was, in fact, due only about half an hour later? Yes. Certainly… Sherlock hated to be so calculable. Not even mentioning needy and clingy and annoying.

But they had wasted so much time already with their ‘difficult relationship’ over decades. Now that they had finally found together in the way Sherlock had been craving ever since he had been old enough to discover his sexuality – but had never acted on it, of course – even a week of not seeing each other felt like an incredible loss. Calling each other was a poor substitute for _this_ – having big brother taking him apart or vice versa. Sherlock loved having sex with Mycroft, or just holding hands in front of the telly, watching one of Mycroft's stupid spy movies. It was hard enough to steal time they could spend together after all. Everybody in Sherlock's life had to be left in the dark about this forbidden relationship. Nobody in the whole world was allowed to know about it. Not just because it was against the stupid law. But if anyone found out how dear they were to each other, they would be in danger of having this fact used against them. As long as everybody thought they regarded each other with contempt, they were safe from being targeted to get something from the other one.

It was difficult and a mess – actually their relationship was much more difficult than it had been before these astonishing changes – but it was worth it, of course. Sherlock loved his brother like crazy and he hoped that Mycroft was returning these feelings in the same way.

Mycroft's lubed fingers had found his hole now and were opening him up efficiently.

“You can’t fuck me with your suit on,” Sherlock remarked while trying to relax his muscles around the intruding digits.

“Oh, I think you'll find I can.” Mycroft pulled back and fumbled with his zip. His large cock all but sprung out of the flies, hard and ready to get to work. Mycroft worked his sack out of its confinements, too, heavy and hairy it was hanging out and Sherlock licked his lips.

Mycroft gave him a smile. “Not now, Sherlock.” He took the bottle of lube and worked some more into Sherlock's opening before he urged him to get on all fours so he could take him doggy-style.

It even felt like a loss to not being able to watch his lover but Sherlock took what he could get. In this position, it was less likely to ruin Mycroft's suit. Of course his brother could have undressed but it had always been a fantasy of Sherlock's to fuck him in one of his fancy work outfits, and Mycroft was hovering over him now so his jacket was engulfing Sherlock's back.

Mycroft took no prisoners. He fucked Sherlock like a well-oiled machine, one hand sneaking around him so he could masturbate him in the rhythm of his hard, deep strokes. Sherlock filed the experience away for later – in that growing room of his mind palace that was reserved for their relationship. The memories would help him get through this lonesome week.

When Mycroft pulled out after spilling deep inside him, it felt like a loss. Sherlock, avoiding crashing into the mess he had made on the bed, lay down on a dry spot. “So… You’re off now,” he mumbled. “I won’t see you for a week.”

“You will. Video call?” Mycroft stored his spent cock after cleaning it with some wet wipes.

Sherlock tried to smile. “Yes. Of course. It won’t be an appropriate substitute though, right? Perhaps I should find myself a doppelgänger of yours who can tend to me while you’re away…”

“Not in this lifetime! You’re mine. And I’m yours. Never forget that, little brother.” He bent down to kiss Sherlock gently. “I’ll be back before you even start missing me.”

Sherlock snorted. “Very funny. I already am.” He saw sadness in Mycroft's eyes but also pride and astonishment about being loved by him that much. He got up and cupped Mycroft's perfectly shaven cheeks with his large hands. “I’ll be okay, brother mine. I guess I’ll just pester Lestrade for cold cases and get some experiments done.”

“That’s my boy.” Mycroft pressed him close. “I love you, Lockie.”

Sherlock smiled at the nickname and nuzzled his face against Mycroft's. “Love you too, Mycie. Now go and rock this conference.”

He would miss him. Terribly. But perhaps Mycroft would make it up to him by sneaking away with him for a few days afterwards – making up a case or something. Well, Sherlock could make some plans for how to make Mycroft do that while his brother was away…

“You are hatching something,” Mycroft stated, looking at him.

Sherlock gave him an innocent smile. “Me? Never.”

“Ah, not falling for that. But whatever it is, I’m in.”

“Yeah. In me…”

“I wonder how you survived without a sex life for so long,” Mycroft said, shaking his head.

Sherlock wondered about that, too. Now even a week was too long… “Well, perhaps I’ll become a monk for real while you’re away,” he mused.

“Don’t you dare! I would come and ravish you in the convent,” threatened Mycroft, and Sherlock laughed.

Ah, big brother was just lovely. And his… Only his. And when Mycroft was back, he would show him how much he had been missing him… until neither of them would be able to walk anymore...


	12. "Show Me The Rest Of Her. That's Her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "A Scandal In Belgravia." A twist to the actual scene, POV Molly Hooper.

“You didn’t need to come in, Molly.” Sherlock sounded almost… grateful.

“That’s okay. Everyone else was busy with... Christmas.” Who needed that anyway? Christmas was for children and lovebirds. Not for a woman who dressed up for a man she would never have, chose a present for him and wrapped it nicely – just to have her actions deduced to shreds by him… Well, at least he had apologised… And now his scary brother had asked – or rather: told – her to accept a corpse from another morgue. A rather gruesome one. Not that it mattered to her. She had seen worse.

She gestured at the bony body under the white sheet. “The face is a bit, sort of, bashed up, so it might be a bit difficult.” She revealed the face. Or what was left of it. Someone must have been very angry at this woman...

“That’s her, isn’t it?” Sherlock's brother asked.

He was so elegant. Molly felt decidedly stupid in her Christmas jumper. Probably everybody – except for Sherlock of course – felt stupid in this man’s presence though. He could make the temperature drop a few grades even in a morgue...

Sherlock, looking so edible and sexy and handsome and simply stunning, turned to her. “Show me the rest of her.”

What the hell? Having no idea what this all was about – one moment she had been sitting at home after the party at Baker Street, her cat on her lap, watching crap telly, the next one she was on her way to her workplace – she pulled the sheet back so Sherlock could see the naked corpse.

“That’s her.”

Molly was shocked. How did Sherlock recognise a woman from her body? But her astonishment was nothing against the reaction of Mycroft Holmes. His round but attractive face turned into a grimace of disgust and fury.

“So. That’s how it is. You fucked her.”

Molly winced and Sherlock sighed.

“I did not. You and your pointless jealousy, Mycroft!”

“Pointless?! I beg your pardon? You must have seen her naked, otherwise you would have hardly-…”

“I saw her skinny body when she opened the door for me when I went to her place to get the photographs for you and your dear friend Harry. You told me to get them!”

“Yes. That was a huge mistake.”

“And then you told me to stay away from her. Really, Mycroft? After all this time, you think I would fall for a bloody _woman_? A blackmailing whore above all?”

Molly saw Sherlock step into his brother’s personal space. She had forgotten to breathe for a full minute.

A gloved hand was put onto the older man’s pale cheek. “You think I’d seriously been infatuated with her? Interesting.” Sherlock's voice was pure silk.

“You let me believe it,” mumbled Mycroft, his eyes fixed on Sherlock. One of his hands sneaked onto Sherlock's hip. Molly stared at it as if she was hypnotised.

“It doesn’t happen often to see you so… bare of your armour. I let John believe it too. It was too good a chance to pass to make him think I was interested in her. Gives him something to chew at.”

“Cunning. It’s not even her, is it?” Mycroft gestured at the corpse without a glance at Molly, who was forcing herself to breathe in and out now. But not too loudly...

“I can’t really say. Didn’t look at her that thoroughly.” Sherlock shrugged. “I do have her phone. She sent it to me. And I have a suspicion what her passcode might be. The display says, ‘I am… locked.”

Mycroft rolled his eyes. “No, she _wouldn’t_!”

Sherlock chuckled. “I bet. Wanted to wait until we can unlock it together.”

“Mm. Un _lock_ …” Mycroft’s voice had dropped to a deep, seductive baritone. He put a gloved hand of his own on Sherlock's chin. “You menace. Playing with everybody.”

“Not my fault that you’re all puppets,” Sherlock purred. His face was barely an inch away from his brother’s now.

Mycroft was looking at him in wonder. And then he closed the distance between them and pressed his lips onto Sherlock's. A moment later Sherlock all but threw himself onto him and kissed him back with an urgency that made Molly whimper.

Both men turned to her. Two pairs of eyes, one pale-blue, one blue-green like the ocean. Cold, beautiful, enquiring eyes, out for dissecting her brain. Showing some amazement that she was even there… Well, she was used to that...

“You did not see anything,” Mycroft Holmes said, his voice completely bare of emotion now.

“Not if you don’t want to end up like her,” Sherlock gestured at the corpse.

Molly swallowed hard. “No. I… I’m not even here.”

Mycroft regarded her with a look that clearly said, ‘No, you’re not,’ before he turned back to Sherlock, cupped his face with both hands and kissed him again. There were tongues involved. Hungry, eager tongues.

It was impossible to look away. Molly stared and stared until the two men parted with reddened lips, breathing hard.

“Well, go home now, Molly,” Sherlock said to her without turning away from his brother. “We’re done here.” He took the other man’s hand and dragged him towards the door.

“Merry Christmas, Miss Hooper,” said Mycroft, waving nonchalantly at her. He managed to let even these words sound like a threat.

“And a happy new year,” she mumbled, her throat feeling dry.

Had this really happened? For a crazy moment she considered that it was a show for her, so Sherlock would get rid of her unwelcome infatuation with him. Then she shook her head over herself. No. She wasn’t important enough for him to do something that… drastic. This had been real.

God. And it had been fucking _hot_ … Sure, she was devastated to see Sherlock with someone else. But if it had to be someone who wasn’t her, his brother was still the best choice. She would have never been able to keep up with him. And damn – this cold bastard was sexy in his own, frightening way… To imagine these two brothers fucking with each other… It sent shivers down her spine. And other places.

She was depraved. Deranged. And horny.

She would clean up here and then go home and have a good time with her best friend apart from her beloved cat Puffy – her purple vibrator.


	13. "Look At You, All Happy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "A Study In Pink". POV Mrs Hudson.

“Oh. I didn’t know you had a… visitor.”

“You didn’t hear them bicker in your flat?” asked John Watson in a long-suffering tone. “Lucky you.”

“My brother just dropped by to control me,” said Sherlock, sulkily.

“I already had tea, thank you, Mrs Hudson,” Mycroft Holmes said, politely, looking at the tray in her hands, containing two ill-matched and slightly chipped cups, the teapot and a plate with biscuits.

“Nonsense. Visitors get tea,” she said sternly and put the tray onto the table. “I’ll be right back.” One could say a lot about her but nobody would leave her house with a dry throat, not even the stiff man in the black suit. And he had been polite for a change!

“He’s no visitor. He’s the plague,” drawled Sherlock, and it sounded all wrong to her ears – too blatant, too dramatic, too uncalled-for – and even a tad nervous.

It hit her when she opened the cupboard to get a mug for Sherlock's brother. She gasped. And then she started to think, and, being an old woman or not, she was able to think very quickly. She might not be as clever as Sherlock or his brother, but she was neither dumb nor senile. Let alone was she tight-arsed and conservative.

In the end, she took out a cup from the depths of the cupboard, and hurried downstairs with it after quickly cleaning it up with hot water. It had become a bit dusty over the months since she had last drunk from it.

°°°

“Why does _he_ get such a nice cup?” Sherlock complained when she handed the white porcelain cup with the golden edge over to Mycroft Holmes, gesturing towards his own rather shabby specimen. “I’ve never even seen it! And it’s clearly even older than you!”

“It belonged to my mother,” she said, with dignity, and filled it for the politician. “And I never gave it to you or John because you might break it.” In fact, she had never used it for herself, apart from her late mother’s birthday every year. She did not have many items that had actually belonged to her so it was very dear to her. But now seemed to be a good time to let someone else use it.

“Thank you,” Mycroft said, smiling at her cautiously and gratefully. He looked almost… shy? “It is really a beautiful piece.” His beautiful, long-fingered hand was holding it with great care.

It was as if she was really seeing him for the first time. Whenever she had run into him here in her house, he had seemed so cold and arrogant and unpleasant. She had never even tried to look behind his façade of superiority and coolness. Buying Sherlock's alleged dislike for him, she had side-lined with him and John, forming a front against the older man. How stupid! Even cruel. Now she could see that beneath all this pomp and arrogance, he was a sensitive, even lovable man who cared deeply for his baby brother. And Sherlock cared for him the same way – a not entirely brotherly way. Was it a recent development? Most definitely, given Sherlock's sudden – albeit subtle – change in behaviour. She didn’t doubt that Sherlock's resentments towards his older brother had been real for a long time. This had clearly changed. And now they were playing a charade for everybody so nobody would discover their secret. The secret of a forbidden romantic – and most certainly sexual – relationship. Both sad and terribly romantic!

“Looks like something he would get from the Queen,” chuckled John.

The poor darling. So easily fooled. He would never get it. “It suits him. My mother would be pleased that her precious cup is getting used again by someone who cherishes the finer things in life,” she said calmly – and was there a slight blush on the round cheeks of the tall man in the fancy suit?

Sherlock stared at her, deducing her like mad. “You will only encourage him to come here more often,” he hissed, and Martha Hudson suppressed a smile. Clever!

“And why not? He behaves a lot better than you! He has never broken a cup unlike some people. And he has never shot my walls or put a dissected penis into my fridge!”

John snorted into his tea and Mycroft Holmes choked on his one and tried to cough delicately.

Sherlock sighed and got up to pat his back none-too-gently. “Ah, I see! You want to kill him now. Cunning! And it was only one time, and I only used your fridge because John had filled ours with ghastly vegetables!” He glowered at the doctor, who rolled his eyes and totally missed that Sherlock's hand had lingered on his brother’s back a tad too long.

He was testing her. Perhaps being in love had made his deduction powers become a bit slow. Otherwise he would have not only figured out that she had seen what John had and would not, but he would have also understood that she was on their side. How could she not? Love was a gift, no matter who was hit by Cupid’s arrow. Yes, for years she had hoped that Sherlock and John would become what she had thought they were in the beginning – a couple. But it had never happened and John had proven to be quite the – rather unsuccessful – womanizer. And really – Sherlock and Mycroft made for a very attractive couple. So smart, so handsome, tall and charismatic. John had endured Sherlock's strange habits and unpredictable behaviour stoically – but Mycroft certainly understood it. No matter which horrible behaviour he had experienced from his brother or into which trouble Sherlock had brought himself, he had never ceased to look after him and support him. And finally Sherlock had realised what his brother meant to him and they had gone down a forbidden road, and, by all means, they should continue to do so.

They chatted a bit about Sherlock and John’s latest case, and Mycroft Holmes even talked to her about the fine china of the Queen. It was all very pleasant, despite the acidic remarks Sherlock threw towards his brother from time to time. Mycroft sighed then or rolled his eyes or replied in the same way. It was really an interesting little play they were doing for John’s benefit.

When Mycroft finally got up to leave, Sherlock said, “I need to go to Bart’s. Give me a ride.”

The older man sighed. “Since you’ve asked so politely…”

Mrs Hudson put the cutlery on the tray and accompanied them downstairs as she knew she was supposed to do. Mycroft had led the way and was waiting for them in front of the door. Sherlock had closed the door of 221B behind him, leaving the oblivious part of the household to his innocent self.

“You are a remarkable woman,” Mycroft said with no little respect in his voice when she joined him, followed by Sherlock.

“I’ve told you many times, brother,” Sherlock chided him, but his tone was far from being snarky and impolite now. He sneaked an arm around his brother’s waist, making Mycroft wince.

Martha put the tray onto the table next to the door. “Do not worry, Mr Holmes. I know how to keep a secret. Especially such a nice one.”

“Is it?” both Holmes brothers asked, disbelievingly.

“Of course it is,” she said, shaking her head. “Look at you, all happy. I haven’t seen you like this for years, Sherlock, and you, Mr Holmes…”

Sherlock chuckled and squeezed his lover even tighter. “Always sour-looking, I know. But you should see him when I-…”

“Sherlock!” hissed Mycroft, horrified, and Mrs Hudson giggled.

“I’ll never tell anybody,” she assured them then again. “But… Could you… maybe?” She gestured between the two of them, and Mycroft's face became beet-red and Sherlock produced a very undignified squeak.

“Mrs Hudson!” the detective brought out but his eyes gave him away. He did like to show off after all. And he enjoyed showing that this tall, elegant man belonged to him.

“Just a little peck? For me?”

Sherlock grimaced. “Now you sound like Moriarty.” He glanced at the still closed door of his flat. “Ah, why not. Come here, brother mine.”

“I… We really shouldn’t-… Mmpf!”

“Oh,” Martha breathed. “You’re lovely, really.” Two such attractive men kissing. Sherlock, holding his brother’s face in an iron grip, plundering his mouth. It was such a nice sight! If she had been twenty years younger, she would have gotten very excited… Okay, perhaps she was even now… She was old, not dead.

Sherlock grinned after pulling away with reddened lips, and she could see how moved he was under his cool demeanour. “Enough of the peep show. Next you’ll demand watching us-…”

“I swear, if you don’t shut up now, you’re going over my knee this instant!” thundered Mycroft, managing to still keep his voice down.

“Don’t give her ideas!” protested Sherlock, his eyes sparkling, and he batted Mycroft's hand away when his behind received a playful blow. “Fiends, the pair of you.”

No, she had really never seen him so happy. It made her old heart get all warm. She was happy for them, very much so. The only thing she regretted was that she couldn’t tell Mrs Turner, who was so proud of her boring married ones, that she had incestuous ones now.

“We owe you, Mrs Hudson,” said Mycroft, earnestly, and she smiled.

“The only thing you owe me is to keep our boy happy.”

“Oh, I do plan to. Always.” He smiled back at her.

Sherlock laughed in his low, beautiful baritone. “You can start in your car. He has a privacy screen and his driver is basically deaf,” he explained to her.

Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Menace of my life, that’s what you are.”

“He’s doing a marvellous job at that, isn’t he?” Martha crooned, and Sherlock snorted.

“I can tell you at which _job_ I’m really good, I’m sure brother would-… Ow!”

It was impossible to miss that Sherlock liked to talk about his relationship to someone he could trust. He would tell her all the juicy details when they were alone next time, and she couldn’t wait for them.

For now she bade them goodbye and watched them leave the house, all stiff and keeping their distance again. They could and would fool the world, but they had not been able to fool her. She could see when her darling Sherlock was happy.

It filled her heart with joy and lightness.


	14. "I Love You."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The famous quote from "The Final Problem". The same scene but with a twist. I used most of the actual dialogue of that scene. Minor character death.

“She’s perfectly safe, for the moment. Her flat is rigged to explode in approximately three minutes. Unless I hear the release code from her lips. I’m calling her on your phone, Sherlock. Make her say it.” Eurus sounded hatefully pleased with herself. But that was her in a nutshell.

“Say what?” John asked.

“Obvious, surely?” Eurus drawled.

John shook his head. “No.” Of course he didn't get it. He was not a Holmes. How nice going through life in such blissful oblivion had to be.

“Yes,” Sherlock mumbled and looked at the blasted coffin lid with those words that seemed to mock him, avoiding the intense stare of his brother, standing next to it. Little sister really did know how to get things fucked up for real…

He heard Mycroft's word resounding in his head. _‘It’s for somebody who loves Sherlock. This is all about you. Everything here. So who loves you? I’m assuming it’s not a long list.’_ The words, spoken with something that resembled contempt, had stung but nobody had noticed. Thank God.

“Oh, one important restriction: you’re not allowed to mention in any way at all that her life is in danger,” Eurus clarified.

As if he had not known that. He didn’t grace her with an answer.

Eurus was not pleased with being ignored. “You may not – at any point – suggest that there is any form of crisis. If you do, I will end this session and her life. Are we clear?”

He nodded and grimaced when Jim’s voice echoed from the walls once more. _“_ _Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tick.”_ Dealing with Eurus was bad enough. He really didn't need dead Jim Moriarty to make it even worse.

It seemed to take ages until Molly finally answered the phone at the second attempt after letting her answering machine take it the first time. Sherlock was surprised that Eurus had even made another try. She had to be really keen on playing this particular game. And it was not the last one…

“ _Hello, Sherlock. Is this urgent, ’cause I’m not having a good day.”_

This was not going to end well – the pathologist looked as if she had been crying – but he had to try. “Molly, I just want you to do something very easy for me, and not ask why.”

Molly sighed. _“Oh, God. Is this one of your stupid games?”_

 _No. For once, it’s_ somebody else’s _stupid game…_ “No, it’s not a game. I... need you to help me.” His words sounded so clumsy. No wonder… He had never been good at this ‘relationship business’. Especially if there wasn’t any relationship beyond getting people to do him favours to begin with...

“ _Look, I’m not at the lab.”_ Molly sounded rather exasperated.

“It’s not about that.”

“ _Well, quickly, then. Sherlock? What is it? What do you want?”_

Again Jim’s annoying voice came across the speakers. _‘Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tick.’_

Sherlock took a deep breath. “Molly, please, without asking why, just say these words.”

“ _What words?”_

“I love you.” The words came out surprisingly clear, considering the fact that they almost kept stuck in his throat. It felt so wrong to say them. He had never actually said them.

“ _Leave me alone.”_ Molly proceeded to end their conversation.

“Molly, no, _please_ , no, don’t hang up! Do _not_ hang up!” Sherlock pleaded. God, this was awful.

“Calmly, Sherlock, or I _will_ finish her right now,” Eurus said in a strident tone.

“ _Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making fun of me?”_ Molly asked, sounding and looking pitiful.

“Please, I swear, you just have to listen to me.” He didn't want to be in this cell. He didn't want to have this conversation. But he had to get through it now. “Molly, this is for a case. It’s... It’s a sort of experiment.” He knew at once that these words had not been right.

“ _I’m not an experiment, Sherlock,”_ Molly retorted, predictably.

God, why couldn’t she just do what he said? “No, I know you’re not an experiment. You’re my friend. We’re friends.” Sort of… “But... please. Just... say those words for me.”

“ _Please don’t do this. Just... Just... don’t do it.”_

Sherlock tried to smile but it hurt his mouth. He could feel Mycroft's stare on his back as well as John’s palpable tension. “It’s _very_ important. I can’t say why, but I promise you it is.”

“ _I can’t say that. I can’t... I can’t say that to you.”_

“Of _course_ you can. _Why_ can’t you?” It was like pulling teeth. Worse. And the time was running out. And his patience was wearing thinner and thinner by the second.

“ _You_ know _why.”_

“No, I _don’t_ know why.” What was he saying here? Of course he did. He just didn’t want to know it...

“ _Of course you do,”_ Molly mirrored his thoughts.

Dealing with a petulant child couldn’t be any more annoying. And that Eurus put Jim on speaker again almost made Sherlock scream in frustration. “Please, just say it.” It couldn’t be that difficult!

“ _I can’t. Not to you.”_

“Why?”

“ _Because... because it’s true,”_ Molly whispered. _“Because... it’s... true, Sherlock. It’s always been true.”_

Fucking hell. Eurus was really good… Hitting where it hurt. “Well, if it’s true, just say it anyway.” Why didn’t she just get it over with?

“ _You bastard.”_

Well, he had heard that before. “Say it anyway,” he insisted, feeling more and more annoyed and exasperated. And he remembered how she had told him not too long ago that John didn’t want to see him anymore. She had side-lined with Watson after Mary’s death even though she had never seemed to be so fond of the doctor before. It had irked him then and did so even more now. Strange way of being in love… Well, he was one to talk…

“You _say it. Go on. You say it first,”_ Molly spat out.

“What?” This couldn’t be true.

“Say it. Say it like you mean it.” She sounded almost triumphant all at once.

“Final thirty seconds,” Eurus announced.

Sherlock took a deep breath. “I-I…” He broke off. “Sorry. I can’t.” Were there even explosions in her flat? How had Eurus organised that?

“ _Say it!”_ Molly insisted.

Sherlock shook his head. “I can’t believe you are turning this around like this.” He couldn’t say these words. Not to her. Not when… _he_ was around. Impossible...

“Sherlock!” John hissed. “Tell her already!”

Mycroft said nothing but Sherlock could feel his presence more than ever before. The room seemed to shrink. It was a familiar feeling but it had never felt so intense before.

He made a last attempt at talking sense into this silly goose on the other line. “Molly, stop playing stupid games and…”

And then he saw the room blow up, furniture flying around, a coffee machine almost hitting the camera. Molly didn’t even have time to scream as she was smashed against the wall as the room went up in flames.

“Fuck, Sherlock!” John screeched and pushed against his back with both fists, making him stumble. “How could you not-…”

“Shut up. And don’t you dare hit me!” Sherlock shouted, his pulse racing. “It’s her own fault! Not mine! Why didn’t she just say it?! And _I_ didn’t let her house explode. That was her!” He gestured at the screen. “I didn’t blow it up. I didn’t shoot Mary, either. And I can’t tell just anyone that I love them.”

“Why not?” John asked, looking gaunt and shocked even though Sherlock had never gotten the impression that he was so affectionate towards Molly. But he had lost his most trusted babysitter after all… “We would have explained it afterwards. She would have understood.”

“I just can’t.” Sherlock turned to the screen that showed his sister looking totally perplexed. She had certainly not expected this outcome. “I hate you. And I’m not playing your stupid games anymore. What was supposed to be next? Me shooting either Mycroft or John?” There was only one bullet left after all and sister dear had already given a hint. Eurus’ look said it all. “Thought so.” And of course Eurus would have expected him to kill Mycroft. Which he would never have done. “Just let us go. I refuse to play any longer.”

“But the plane…”

“Sod the plane!” Sherlock burst out. “If it’s even up there.” They had only heard the girl but not seen any proof, he only now realised. He grinned maliciously when Eurus grimaced just for a second. “So it’s not. Open the doors. It’s over.”

“But… Redbeard,” Eurus whispered, disappointment showing in her pale face. She was still holding the whip hand. But she was about to give up; Sherlock could feel it. She was turning into the little girl she had pretended to be in the end.

And what did his childhood dog have to do with anything of this? “What about him?”

“He wasn’t a dog.”

Sherlock whirled around to his brother. “What?”

Mycroft nodded. He looked exhausted, the awful events of the day taking their toll. “He was your friend Victor. Eurus brought him somewhere and let him die. Drowned him, obviously, as I said.”

He had just not mentioned that they had not been talking about a _dog_ … “I can’t remember him.” Sherlock shook his head. Did that matter? Not really.

“No. But you will. Your memories will all come back.”

They both winced when they heard the soft noise of the door getting unlocked. Sherlock looked at the screen. Eurus was still sitting in her chair, her face resigned. Like a puppet that had been cut off its strings. If he had just known she would be so easily stopped…

John rubbed his face. “God. This is… She’s dead. Molly’s dead.”

Sherlock was feeling numb. “Not my fault. Let’s go. Mycroft, get your people to take over the prison.”

“Yes. Well played, little brother.”

Not good enough for Molly. Or the governor. His wife. The Garridebs. But none of this was his fault. And still he felt hollow and exhausted.

He nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

*****

“Get into the cab, John. I’m taking another one.”

John gave him a hurt look. “You’re not coming with me? We agreed on you staying with me and Rosie until you can return to 221B.”

Sherlock didn’t suffer from amnesia. He did remember these plans very well. But this was not an option anymore.

They had just left the Yard where a very shaken and barely functioning Lestrade had asked for their testimony on the Garrideb case and the explosion even though Mycroft would probably tell him to stay out of it in a few hours.

After returning to London in the helicopter, he and John had gone to Molly’s flat, where they had met the DI. Lestrade had been crying, looking all snotty and awful. It had felt weird. Sherlock had known the man for years but he had never seen him cry. Obviously he had feelings for Molly, which he had never admitted to her. If he’d had, this evening would have probably ended very differently. In fact, Molly wouldn’t even have been a target for Eurus. All the ‘what if’s’ didn’t help though. They wouldn’t make anything undone. They all had to live with the things they had or hadn’t done. An universal truth of mankind.

“I’m going to see my brother,” Sherlock said now.” Probably Mycroft was through with locking Eurus up for good and exchanging the compromised guards and getting an interim governor by now. “There is a lot to discuss.”

He had seen it on Mycroft's face when they had parted. Mycroft had understood why Sherlock couldn’t have said those words to Molly. And probably Eurus had understood, too, and that’s why she had given in and given up so easily. She had known that she had lost.

The prospect scared him. Deeply. To be alone with his brother. This whole day had been hellish though. And what he had seen in Mycroft's eyes had given him hope that it wouldn’t end that hellishly after all, as hard it was to allow himself to even consider this. He would have never imagined that. But if it was true, he would be brave enough to face it. If nothing else tonight had shown him that it could be over within the blink of an eye. Not that this would have been news to him but still. It had been a particularly enlightening experience in that regard…

“You don't care?” John interrupted his musings, ignoring the impatient looks of the cab driver, a resolute-looking woman of about fifty, who was chewing gum and rolling her eyes at them quite impressively.

Sherlock gestured at her to wait for another moment. “Don't care about what – Molly? Are you seriously blaming me for -…”

“No.” John shook his head. “No, I don't. You’re right. It was your sister’s fault; nobody else’s. But still. Molly did a lot for you.”

Sherlock nodded. “I know.” Not recently but in the past. “But in the end, her stubbornness got the better of her.”

John bit his lip. “I still don't see why you couldn’t just lie and tell her… the words.”

No. Of course John did not see. He never would. And he would always want him to care and do better and _be_ better. It was tiresome. “I couldn’t. And now you need to go. We will talk tomorrow. Well, later today.”

The doctor shrugged. “Okay. I’ll inform Mrs Hudson.”

“Good. Good night, John.”

John proceeded to finally open the door of the cab but then he turned around again. “And you were right about the other stuff, too. I told you. Mary chose to die for you.”

But he had not forgiven Sherlock for it. Not really. Nor had he apologised for his violence. But that was what they were – two men who were unable to really voice their feelings.

Perhaps there would be a time to talk about it; he knew that John was sorry for what had happened in that morgue. But now wasn’t this time.

Sherlock watched the cab drive off, and then he turned to go to the tube. He needed some exercise now. To gather enough courage for what was about to happen.

It was late but he was sure that Mycroft would still be awake. He also had no doubt that big brother certainly knew exactly where he was now. And where he was about to go.

*****

Mycroft did not look in the least surprised when he opened the door. Wearing a dressing gown over dark-blue pyjamas, a glass with amber fluid in his hand. “Sherlock. Everything done?” His hair was slightly damp from the shower and he was clean shaven. His eyes looked tired though and there was unmissable tension in his shoulders.

Sherlock, trying to fight a weird feeling of nervousness and anxiety, nodded and slipped into the house when Mycroft gestured for him to enter. “Had a look at what’s left of Molly’s house. Then went to the Yard for that and the Garrideb case. But why am I telling you that? You surely watched every step I’ve made.” He wasn’t surprised that Mycroft just gave him a slight smile at that. “And what about dear sis? Locked up again?” He hung up his coat. It was warm in Mycroft's house. Homely, despite the ghastly paintings on the walls.

“Oh yes.” Mycroft waved him down the corridor. “Took me some hours and tomorrow I will have to face the music with Lady S. and the PM but I’m positive that Eurus won’t ever be able to run amok again.”

“I hope so very much.” They had reached the living room and Mycroft raised the whiskey bottle with a questioning look. Sherlock nodded. “Good one.”

“Naturally. Do sit down.”

Sherlock let himself drop onto the massive black leather couch. The room was generous and sparsely furnished but not unappealing. How often had he been here, not counting the occasion when he had John had broken in along with Wiggins’ friends? He wouldn’t have needed all fingers of one hand to count. Mycroft had never invited him. He had not had any reason to believe that Sherlock would have liked to come. Sherlock had mastered the art of hiding his true feelings a long time ago – just as Mycroft obviously had. Until tonight.

It was a very weird feeling – that everything could be so different now. A window of opportunity had opened up on the most improbable of days. Or rather nights. They had gone through an ordeal of great dimensions. Sherlock had lost a friend, officially met a sister who was fond of playing deadly games, and learned that his childhood dog had in fact been a boy. Craziness had ruled and now there was silence and cautious looks as secrets had been given away – under pressure but strangely enough not unwelcome.

One look into those pale-blue eyes and his own refusal to speak out words to someone else that described what he was feeling for the man who was sitting opposite of him now, his long fingers holding the glass with feigned nonchalance, had turned his world around. Mycroft was clearly as nervous as he was – nobody else would have detected this but this was Sherlock's very own _métier_ after all. Detecting all the tell-tale signs of eyebrows twitching barely noticeably, legs being crossed a tad too firmly, the smile that was playing around finely shaped lips a bit too casual to be believable.

It soothed his own nervousness instead of decreasing it. Mycroft too was out of his depth; Mycroft, man of the world, who had never had a serious relationship but had definitely made some experiences some time ago. So it was fine for him, the man without any experience at all, to feel his heart beat a little too fast at the prospect of… whatever would actually happen. Chances were good that Mycroft would be the voice of reason, insisting on keeping things platonic – big bro did have a lot more to lose than him, and he had always felt responsible for his wayward little brother after all.

And still Mycroft had expected him to show up. Had let him in. Had made sure to look and smell as appetising as possible. He couldn’t be that averse to it… Or perhaps Sherlock was just being hopelessly presumptuous and delusional.

Only one way to find out, he assumed. What better night than this? Escaped from insanity. Having watched people die – even a friend. He wished he had showered at John’s place though before heading over here. Involuntarily, he reached up to stroke over his stubbly chin and grimaced self-consciously.

“I have a guest room ready for you,” Mycroft broke the silence. “Adjoining bathroom. You’ll find everything necessary.”

Of course he had. But when had he even had time to prepare that though? While being busy with arranging for Eurus to be locked away safer now? “Your housekeeper?” They had never spoken about the existence of such a person but he could hardly see Mycroft scrubbing the floors himself, as little mess he certainly made considering the fact that he basically lived in his offices.

“Anthea.” Mycroft smiled. “Asked her to take care of everything. She even went to Baker Street to get some clothes that had not been burnt to ashes.”

“Presumptuous,” Sherlock said but he couldn’t hide his awe.

“Fairly. But you’re here, aren’t you?” Mycroft emptied his glass, and Sherlock followed his example.

“I am,” he said then.

Silence fell upon them once more. How to start talking about such a topic? How to speak out something he had been hiding in the deepest corner of his soul for two bloody decades – ever since Mycroft had come home from uni that Christmas, having turned into the handsome, elegant man he was today? How long had Mycroft done the same?

He caught himself giving his brother a pleading look. He was the older one. He should save him now.

And Mycroft had mercy. “So… Why did you not tell her?” he asked, his voice quiet and soft. “Miss Hooper,” he added, as if there had been any doubt about what he was talking about.

Sherlock's heart started to beat a tad faster. “I couldn’t.”

“You said, yes. Why is that so?”

They were gazing into each other’s eyes now, and Sherlock could feel his cheeks getting hot. It was now or never, wasn’t it? Probably not – Mycroft would wait. He had probably waited for a long time already as well. But Sherlock had never considered himself a coward. He had thought this to be out of his reach for ages. But now he knew it wasn’t, and it would have felt unforgivable to not act on it right away.

“Because… I didn’t love her. And it felt wrong to confess a love I do not feel. Especially… in your presence.”

Very slowly, Mycroft got up from his armchair. Sherlock followed straight as if someone had pulled at invisible strings. “I can’t believe I’ve missed this, Sherlock,” Mycroft said very quietly, regret and melancholy in his voice.

Yes. So many wasted years, spent pretending Mycroft was an annoyance to him, an enemy, an unwelcome presence, when he had been the only person Sherlock had ever considered to be… the one. The one who was his equal. The one he longed to call his own. His everything.

He nodded. “I know what you mean. And what a moment to find out that you… feel the same?”

Mycroft made a step forward, and Sherlock mimicked his action. A long arm gently curled around his waist. “So I do,” Mycroft said, his voice heavy with affection and trembling just a bit.

“I stink,” Sherlock burst out, and Mycroft gave him a look of comical surprise. “I mean… You’re all scrubbed and tasty and I…”

And then Mycroft smiled, and Sherlock had never seen him smile like this. It made his heart do a very weird little flip, and then his arms were around his big brother’s neck and their lips met, and it was impossible to say who had made the first move.

It was a chaste, gentle, cautious kiss and yet it sent sparks and waves of electricity through Sherlock's entire body, and all his senses were on fire. He smelled and felt and enjoyed Mycroft's taste and flavour and warmth and his arms holding him in place, a hand gently stroking over his back.

“Must I sleep in the guest room?” he asked when they had parted, his heart throbbing in his chest like mad.

Mycroft smiled again this breathtaking smile. “So fast, little brother?”

Sherlock knew that they had a lot to discuss and explain and address. And he was certainly not ready to jump into the unknown waters of a sexual relationship right away, in what was left of this truly memorable night. “I just want to sleep next to you,” he confessed sheepishly. "I mean, of course I do want more but we might need to take it slow and…” He broke off, embarrassed by how clumsy he sounded.

But he wouldn’t have needed to worry. “That’s quite alright,” Mycroft assured him, still holding him in a firm but gentle grip. “Suits me just fine. And I’d love to have you by my side tonight. And for as long as you want to stay.”

That sounded very good. Extraordinarily good. “I love you,” Sherlock said without thinking about it. And this time, saying those words just felt right.

And Mycroft, who had always told him that sentiment was to be avoided at all costs, bent forward to kiss him on the lips again. “So do I, brother mine, so do I.”

And when Sherlock had finally scrubbed off the pains and nastiness of this day spent in hell and joined his brother in bed, he felt like he had finally come home.


	15. "My Hostage."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "The Reichenbach Fall". Post Sherrinford, smut and some silliness.

Mycroft woke up with a start, realising several things at once. It was way too bright in his bedroom for being six am. Something was off with his right foot. And he was not alone.

He sat up quickly. “Sherlock! What are you doing here?! And… what is _this_?!” He put the blanket away – and realised something he had missed so far. He was only wearing his boxer briefs apart from his pyjama jacket. But he had gone to bed with his pyjama _trousers_ on as well!

His brother, sitting on a chair next to his bed, gave him a calm look. “You’re slipping. I’ve been here for hours and did all this and you not once woke up and only sniffled in your sleep. Which was quite cute by the way.”

“Cute… Sherlock… Why-…” He broke off as a million questions suggested themselves. He grabbed for his phone on the bed stand. “It’s ten! Why did my alarm not go off?”

Sherlock shrugged. “A technical problem?” he asked, innocently.

Mycroft knew as well as he did that the only problem in this room was Sherlock himself. That – and the perfectly tied, red rope around his right ankle. He gestured at it, silently.

“Oh, don’t worry. It gives you enough room to use the loo. There would have been other ways to take care of that but I thought you’d be squeamish about doing that.”

Mycroft gaped at his baby brother for a few seconds, rendered utterly speechless, before he pinched the inside of his left thigh discreetly, as surely this could only be a crazy dream. But he felt the pain and winced, still very much in this surreal situation, while Sherlock glanced hungrily at his hand, which was so close to his nether regions and had obviously not been discreet enough. He pulled it away hastily. “Sherlock… Are you high?” This was the only other explanation.

Sherlock sighed. “No, brother. And don't play stupid with me. It doesn’t suit you. You know damn well what’s going on.”

“No, I do not!”

“Oh really? Have you become senile in your middle age? The kiss, remember?”

Mycroft gulped. Yes, of course he remembered _The Kiss_. He had really (unsuccessfully) tried to erase it from his memory. Because it was wrong, horribly _wrong_ , to kiss one’s little brother. Well, actually Sherlock had kissed _him_. But he had let him. And that was unforgivable. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, not for the first time.

“Why?! I kissed you. And I don’t regret it. I want more! Much more!” Sherlock glowered at him rather dangerously.

Oh yes, he had left no doubt that he did. He had showered Mycroft with calls and texts and had even come to the office to demand more. Mycroft had taken to disappearing to secret rooms in the secret floors of the Cabinet Office and the Diogenes, finding excuses for Anthea and his colleagues that had earned him some suspicious looks. Had even slept there until Sherlock had given up. But only to make a plan as it seemed… And why did his little brother, Mr _Fantastic Eyes And Cheekbones_ , have to be so bloody gorgeous? So… desirable? Like now – with his tousled black curls, his slim-fit black trousers and an equally tight blue shirt, that stressed the blue of his eyes… He was perfectly shaven and showered and…

“God,” Mycroft stammered. “I must look terrible. And I haven’t brushed my teeth!” He rolled his eyes at himself the next moment. Was this really the most important matter now? His looks? It wasn’t as if he was actually about to _do_ anything with baby bro…

Sherlock grinned and shook his head. “In fact you look fetching with that black stubble. You can shave though and brush your teeth anytime even though I don't mind some morning breath.”

“Sherlock… We can talk about everything. But now free me and let me go to work.”

“Nice try. Your colleagues have been informed via text that you will only return to the office tomorrow. Didn’t wonder why there were no missed calls? I did put the tone on mute though, just in case.”

“Sherlock, how dare you!”

“No, how dare _you_?!” Sherlock got up and stalked across the room, gesturing impatiently. “How dare you ignore me and pretend you didn’t enjoy the kiss? You did kiss me back quite vigorously.”

“But I shouldn’t have done that. You’re my brother and it’s wrong to… want you.” It made no sense to deny that he did so. Not towards the master of deductions…

“Says who? The fucking law? Mummy? The entire world? I don't fucking care. I know what is best for me and that’s _you_.”

Mycroft was speechless again for a moment. His brother had broken into his house, pretended to be him to excuse him from work and tied him to his bed. Because he did not accept a ‘no’. A reluctant ‘no’, yes. But still…

“I will let you go tomorrow,” Sherlock said, his voice quiet again. “But until then, you’re my hostage.”

“Your -…”

“…hostage, yes, I said. Worked with John and it will work with you, too.”

“John?!”

“A _ha_!” Sherlock pointed at him. “You’re jealous, don’t even try to deny it! And no, I didn’t do anything with John. But you might remember when I was arrested for the kidnapping my doppelgänger committed, and John hit the chief super and was in handcuffs, too, and we made an escape. And I pretended to take John hostage.”

“Oh. Yes.” Mycroft had not been there of course but a very pissed-off detective inspector had called him afterwards. And as a result of this whole unlucky Moriarty affair, Mycroft had not seen his little brother for two long years. Years he had spent worrying about Sherlock's whereabouts, and if he had believed in a higher power, he would have certainly prayed for baby brother’s safe return.

“You missed me,” Sherlock said softly, sitting down again.

It was hopeless to even try to fool him. That was exactly why Mycroft had refused to talk to him. For weeks. “A lot,” he admitted. Had he been in love with Sherlock back then already? Probably yes. He had not known it though. Had not realised his own feelings. Neither had Sherlock he was sure. Perhaps they had started to manifest themselves when they had been preparing Sherlock's mission. So much had happened since then. More bad things than good things… After Sherrinford, they had been spending more time with each other, which had been very nice – certainly the only good development dear sister had ever caused. And the tension between them had built up until it had accumulated in this kiss…

Sherlock patted his arm. “We decide what is right for us, big brother. Give me this day and night. Well, you have to.” He plucked Mycroft's phone from the bed stand. “I will put this away now so you won’t get tempted to call for help, and you can go refreshing yourself. And then I’ll bring you breakfast.”

Breakfast in bed. Prepared by someone else. When had he last had that? Yeah. Never…

Sherlock smiled, and there was a hint of triumph in this smile. “Just succumb to me for now, brother mine. I told you before – know when you are beaten.”

Mycroft recalled this sentence very well. The Adler case… And he would be damned if he had not been bloody jealous of this horrible woman, too… “Fine,” he said. “Can I get dressed?”

“No.”

Somehow this answer didn’t surprise him… With a sigh, he left his bed and slowly walked towards the bathroom, the rope proving to be quite flexible – and very strong. “I should strangulate you with that,” he mumbled, and he couldn’t suppress a grin when Sherlock burst out laughing.

This was very certainly just the beginning of the most absurd day of his life… And something told him it would also be the most important one.

*****

“This is… really good.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Even I can do scrambled eggs and toast, Mycroft.”

“You’d be surprised how much could go wrong,” mumbled Mycroft, thinking of countless horrible breakfasts at so-called high class hotels. Sherlock's eggs were creamy and spicy and fried just right, and the toast was golden and crunchy. And the coffee he had made was a delight. He really could get used to having such edible breakfast in bed. But… no! “You know it’s still intolerable. Holding me hostage in my own bedroom. If I tell Mummy…”

He earned a smug, unimpressed grin for that. “An empty threat as we both know. She would nag and prod until you tell her why I did it.”

Mycroft shuddered. Of course he was right. He ate up and put the plate onto the tray Sherlock had put onto the empty side of the bed. The side he would probably want for his own. Mycroft gasped at himself for this thought. It could never happen!

Sherlock caught his look and sighed. “Why do you have to make everything so unnecessarily complicated? I know we can never be open about that. But we could still have lots of fun.”

“So that means… you only want a sexual relationship?” Why the hell did he sound so disappointed? And what did he mean with _‘only’_?!

His brother’s eyes brightened up at that. “Oh, that would be a great start! But I didn’t mean I only want to have sex with you. We could go out for dinner, just as brothers. Then come here to have some lessons.”

“Lessons…”

“In sex, yes. I mean, you know I am totally inexperienced.”

“You never seemed to be interested. Why now? Why in me of all people?”

“Fishing for compliments, brother mine? You are perfect for me, as much as I am for you. Even the obvious fact of our superior brains aside – we are like fire and water. We complement each other perfectly. You could ground me and I would bring some serious sparks into your boring life, dedicated to this ancient woman.”

“What – you mean our Queen?” Mycroft couldn’t hide his amusement.

“Yes. Whatever she’s called. She can have you during the day. And I want you when you’re rid of your shackles.”

Mycroft silently lifted his leg. He had washed himself (a shower had seemed too difficult), shaved and brushed his teeth but he was still wearing his pants as Sherlock had refused to untie the rope even for a moment.

Sherlock grinned. “I won’t do that again. But I had to make my point. You’re not getting away. You can’t hide in your boring work buildings from me forever.”

“I still don’t know how I missed you coming in and doing this… Oh no…” Mycroft put his right hand on his forehead.

Sherlock chuckled. “Getting all slow, you. Of course I was here before. Put something harmless in your whiskey that would give you a very deep sleep.”

“You drugged me! Again!” Mycroft eyed the coffee in his cup suspiciously.

“Well… You can only blame yourself for that. If you had been reasonable before…”

“I _was_ reasonable!”

“That’s _your_ opinion,” Sherlock retorted, unimpressed. “You know what they say – everything’s fair in love and war.”

Mycroft gaped at him. “Love… So that’s what it is?”

“Of course! I’m not just here for your body, as delicious as it is. I… want your heart.”

And Mycroft’s heart finally melted. It had belonged to Sherlock anyway. Always. “I surrender,” he said, quietly. “Come here.”

Sherlock licked his lips, suddenly looking both nervous and excited. “You mean…”

“Yes. Come here, little brother.”

“You won’t really try to strangulate me, will you?”

Mycroft smiled. “You deserve it, you know? But no. You want to have me? Take me. I’m all yours.”

Sherlock gave him a highly suspicious look but then he put the tray onto the bed stand and scrambled onto the bed, and Mycroft opened his arms and welcomed him, and he could feel Sherlock tremble with want and anticipation, and suddenly the air between them was crackling.

*****

Oh, this was so much better than Sherlock had even fantasised. Not only would he have never expected Mycroft to give in so quickly after his brave (and, as John would say, bit-not-good) move of breaking in, twice, drugging him and tying him to his bed – Mycroft was smelling and tasting even better (he had kissed all of his face and his upper body, especially his nipples) and was so much warmer and hairier and sexier than he had even imagined in his wildest dreams!

He nuzzled his face against Mycroft's soft neck – and grinned happily when his brother chuckled and rubbed his back with both hands. Sherlock had made himself naked in record time – Mycroft had only needed to take off his pyjama jacket and slid off his pants, which were dangling from the rope now. Sherlock was kneeling between his brother’s legs, and now he closed a hand around his brother’s heavy prick. “So big,” he mumbled, stunned.

“What did you expect?” drawled Mycroft. “I’m your big brother.”

Sherlock giggled. “Yes you are.” He stroked up and down the fat member devotedly. He bent down and pressed a kiss on the mushroom head, and he grinned when Mycroft gasped at that. He looked up and raised his eyebrows. “You could have had this weeks ago,” he admonished him. Stubborn big brother, refusing to act on this mind-blowing kiss they had shared. Forcing him to take to these drastic measures to make the British Government finally listen to him.

Mycroft sighed and nodded. “I’m an idiot. But… I wanted to protect you.”

“From love?” Sherlock said, shaking his head.

“No. Well… From what I thought was the wrong kind of love.”

“It is not!” Sherlock insisted, squeezing the hard, pulsating organ in his hand.

Mycroft rolled his eyes almost comically – not in mockery but arousal. “I know that now, too. But… There is still the fact that we can never be open about this love.”

Sherlock snorted. “Towards who? John doesn’t live with me anymore as you might recall.” And he wouldn’t do it again. Not just because 221B was a small flat with barely enough room for two people, but not for an extra person, especially none that was crawling around everywhere. It was hardly a safe playground for a little child with all the chemicals standing around, not even mentioning Sherlock's experiments with human body parts… John certainly wouldn’t have wanted to watch his daughter chewing on a rotting foot. Or worse… “This phase is over,” he said, and he could hear that he sounded a tad… nostalgic. “And no!” he hurried to add, seeing the expression in Mycroft's eyes. This man – the Iceman, ha! – was so easy to read. “I did not pursue a relationship with you because I don’t have John in my life anymore.” At least not that much. They did meet from time to time and sometimes John joined him in solving cases, if he didn't have a shift at the clinic and if Rosie was in safe custody. “I simply want you. And I don’t care which lies I’ll have to tell Mrs Hudson. And if we can never go visiting our parents again, I won’t be terribly sad, either.” But he was sure that they would be able to deceive everybody if necessary. They were pretty damn smart after all.

“Eurus might deduce it…”

“You did not notice that I haven’t gone to Sherrinford for weeks? Was a bad idea anyway…”

Mycroft nodded and took his free hand. The one that was not still wrapped around his cock, which had, surprisingly enough, lost nothing of its plumpness during the course of their conversation. “Not very responsive, still, our sister.”

“I guess she never will be again. You were right when you told the old people she’s beyond our reach. I could make her smile a bit when we played our duets, but that was all.” It had become too depressing to spend time with her. And frankly – when he had realised what he truly felt for Mycroft, bonding with Eurus had seemed like a really bad idea. Which of course it had been from the start. What had all these people with their demands have made out of him? _‘Be nice.’ ‘Care for others.’ ‘Show compassion.’_ Yes, he would do all that now. For Mycroft. The only one who deserved it. Well, apart from Mrs Hudson. Molly had been rather ghastly to him when he had told her, in very clear words, that he had _not_ meant what she had forced him to say in Sherrinford. That should have been clear, even to her, as she had been the one who had made him utter these words but people were so good at deceiving themselves…

“I don’t want to talk about our sister now, or our parents or John. I want to have you now!”

“Have me meaning…”

“Actually, I want you to have me,” Sherlock specified.

“You’re sure?” was the predictable reply.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Yes!”

“Okay then. Straddle my face and sit down.”

“What?!”

Mycroft gave him a dirty grin. “What? You thought I can’t be naughty?”

Oh Lord… Big brother never ceased to surprise him today. Sherlock hurried to comply, and at the first contact of Mycroft’s hot tongue with his excitedly quivering hole he almost keeled over, and he had to hold on to the only available handle – Mycroft's giant cock.

*****

Was this wrong? Possibly. Did he still care? No. It just seemed like a waste of time. While he was helping Sherlock with mounting him, taking him in inch by inch, all he could feel was reverence and gratitude that Sherlock had been so bold (and cheeky) to attack him like this. And of course arousal. Eating Sherlock's virgin hole had already made his blood get flooded by sexual hormones, being sucked in his tight heat, sticky from lube, was like heaven.

He had insisted on Sherlock being on top so he could control the depth and angle of penetration. If he hurt his little brother at their first time, he would certainly suffer from guilty feelings again.

Sherlock seemed to adjust to the penetration like a fish to water though. Soon he was bouncing up and down on him like a ball, an ecstatic look on his handsome features. It was a sight to behold and Mycroft made sure to memorize every second of it, not just the view of course but also the incredible feelings Sherlock was evoking in him. His hands were on his brother’s thighs or hips, keeping him from tumbling over, and hadn’t he done that all his life? Trying to prevent Sherlock from getting hurt, keeping him safe? This was just a new way to do it as it seemed. A very nice way, no doubt…

Sherlock’s thick cock with the red, plummy head was bouncing against his abdomen in a most fetching way, and when he came with Mycroft still buried deep inside him, his semen spurted everywhere, hitting even Mycroft's nose, which made Sherlock giggle when he saw it. Mycroft smiled and then he closed his eyes, letting his climax come – and it came violently.

Still intimately connected with him, Sherlock collapsed onto him, right into the mess he had produced, and Mycroft closed his arms around him. He stroked his sweaty hair and rubbed his shoulders, and then he mumbled, “Perhaps it might be the time to free me, hm?”

“Oh, yes. Even though I’d rather keep you like this,” answered Sherlock, winking at him.

“I have no doubt. But don’t worry, brother mine. I’m not going anywhere.” Of course he would go to work and live his life, but Sherlock knew very well what he meant.

“Promised?” he asked, his head tilted.

“Promised, my sweet, fiendish captor,” teased Mycroft, and Sherlock chuckled and tweaked his right nipple for good measure, and then he removed the rope.

“Shower?” he asked, offering him his hand, and Mycroft let himself be pulled up.

“Definitely.”

And the two brothers stumbled towards the bathroom, both rather weak in the knees, groping at one another, and Mycroft mused that not many couples started their romantic relationships like this – taking their beloved hostage.


	16. "You Hate Christmas!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "His Last Vow". Just some short Christmas silliness.

This had to be a hallucination. Or perhaps he was still not awake? He had slept for about nine hours, he estimated, which was a record for him. But dreaming or seeing things that were not there were the only explanations for _this_.

Dressed in a pair of Mycroft's fancy pyjamas, Sherlock was standing in his brother’s living room in bright daylight on this Christmas Day, scratching his head while eyeing the (imaginary) item that had not been there when they had made up on the couch last night. A tree. A Christmas tree, to be precise. Fully decorated with bells and little Father Christmas figures and were these angels?! Candles, too, of course. Working with batteries, not fire, Sherlock discovered when he stepped closer, feeling the cool carpet against his bare feet. Not dreaming then, he assumed. A full-on Christmas tree, without a doubt decorated by the biggest despiser of this awful event that Sherlock had ever met – because it was rather unlikely that there had been a break-in last night with the miscreants only coming in to provide them with this symbol of sappiness.

“My efforts are not agreeing with you?” he heard his brother’s voice behind him, the tone innocent and mocking at the same time, and he whirled around, taking in the lovely sight that was the British Government, dressed in plain, black trousers and a fetching blue shirt without a tie or a waistcoat adorning it.

“ _You_ did that?” He simply had to ask, pointing at the monstrosity with a thumb.

“I did,” confirmed Mycroft with a slight smile and his eyebrows raised. “Problem?”

“Yes! You _hate_ Christmas!” Sherlock reminded his brother, and it felt like a throwback to the bad, old times. He hastily shook off any thoughts of Magnussen and drugs in the punch and betrayal. This past would never repeat itself.

“Ah. I do, yes,” nodded Mycroft.

But not this one, Sherlock realised. Their first Christmas together. There was no danger of them being invited – or rather summoned – to their parents. They still were in their bad books. Mycroft for lying about Eurus and Sherlock for stopping to visit her in Sherrinford. They had tried to forgive Mycroft but when Eurus had kept being unresponsive to mainly their mother’s efforts, the bitterness had crept back. They still went to the prison, stubbornly refusing to give up on her, but Sherlock did not see any reason to go there anymore. He sometimes wondered why he had done it in the first place. Probably to make up for… well, whatever. He had not known about her existence anymore so he couldn’t have taken care of her before. Probably it had been due to his permanent bad conscience since Mary’s death.

Well, John had forgiven him and probably did not think of his late wife that much anymore, considering the fact that he was dating again. And Sherlock had been tired of being the one who went out of his way to please people. And seriously – why he had thought he had to please Eurus of all people was beyond him. She had frankly been awful to him and Mycroft in Sherrinford, not even mentioning that she had tried to blow them up before they had gone there. And when he and Mycroft had become a couple, there had been no way for him anymore to play nice with the sister who had wanted him to shoot his brother.

Anyway! “Was this a polar bear?!” Sherlock pointed at the large white fur on the ground next to the horrible tree. It had not been there on the previous evening, either.

Mycroft tutted. “It’s fake fur of course. Very precious one though. Very… soft…,” he added in a highly suggestive voice.

Oh! Sherlock’s mood brightened up considerably. “You mean…”

Mycroft smirked. “Why don’t you hop under the shower and brush your teeth and come back to find out?”

Sherlock had not taken care of his morning hygiene so far. He had woken up, realised that Mycroft was not lying next to him anymore, and had gone searching for him. “On my way!”

“Coffee is ready, too. Get yourself a cup before you head back here, hm?”

“I will!” And with this, Sherlock raced off. This Christmas did promise to be Christmas indeed…

*****

When he hastened back into the room, freshly showered and shaved and wearing nothing but his boxers, he stood dead, assuming that his tongue was hanging out of his mouth, the cup of great coffee forgotten in his hand.

Mycroft was looking up from him from the floor, or, more precisely the fake fur plaid, on which he was lying on his stomach. He had gotten rid of his clothes as well and was wearing even less than Sherlock did. Nothing, actually, apart from a velvety red ribbon around his neck. And… “What… What is that?” He walked around his brother, staring at the small red thing that was poking right out of his hole. It looked like tiny legs, dressed in red trousers and black boots. “Dear Lord…”

“Ah. Father Christmas dropped by and I think he was freezing so he opted for slipping into me. But I’m afraid he got stuck,” answered Mycroft, pensively.

Stuck indeed. “Because you’re so tight, brother,” Sherlock rasped out, his underpants suddenly tenting obscenely.

“You think so? Maybe you should pull him out and see for yourself.”

“Oh, I’m absolutely determined to do that.” Sherlock slipped off his pants. His thick cock slapped against his groin, leaving a damp patch right beneath his navel.

Mycroft looked at it and licked his lips, and Sherlock hurried to kneel down so his brother could lap at his throbbing cock while he could examine his arse from above. He grabbed the plug, gently rocking it, and Mycroft groaned and then hot warmth engulfed the head of Sherlock's cock and he almost came right away. “Easy, brother,” he complained while pulling back. “We wouldn’t want me to waste a perfect erection so carelessly, would we?”

“We both know you can get it up again in five minutes,” was Mycroft's dry reply.

Sherlock grinned. “Still. I want this load to land in your gorgeous arse, brother mine.”

“Gorgeous… Why the flattering? Didn’t you buy me a present?”

“Ahem…”

Mycroft laughed. “Just kidding, Sherlock. I don’t expect anything but some attention.”

“You’ll get plenty.” That was an easy promise. “And your arse _is_ gorgeous. As is everything that is you.”

“Ah, the spirit of Christmas did reach you in the end.”

“Mycroft!”

“Forgive me, brother dear. I never was the pretty one of us.”

Sherlock growled deep in his throat. It was hopeless. Mycroft and his low self-esteem regarding his looks. He would never understand it. He worked the plug out of his brother’s arse, still hovering over him. “Where’s the head? In you?”

“No. He doesn’t have one. That would have been painful!”

Sherlock grinned. “True. But I will go on believing that the rest of him is inside of you now, having found a warm nest.”

“You are crazy,” Mycroft said, fondly.

“Christmas is crazy, too,” retorted Sherlock, unimpressed. “How do you want me?” He probed at his brother’s loosened hole. Sticky. Lots of lube already in. Very convenient.

Mycroft rolled onto his back. “Like this.”

“What… What is that?” Sherlock stared at his brother’s nipples. Only that they were not really visible. They were… little Father Christmas heads… “Nipple clamps?!” Since when was Mycroft so kinky?

“Just for the occasion.” Mycroft smiled, happy about the effect of his little game.

“I need to take pictures.”

“Only over my dead body.”

“Well…”

Mycroft glowered at him. “Fuck me now, brother, or my arse will close again.”

“Oh, we can’t let that happen.” Sherlock hurried to get into position and draped his brother’s legs over his shoulders, letting the head of his cock nudge against his quivering, Father-Christmas-free entrance.

“Much better,” crooned Mycroft, and then he moaned when Sherlock pushed in and started to fuck him in a slow, steady pace.

Christmas indeed!


	17. "This Is Family."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from "The Final Problem". I will end this story for now but if inspiration strikes, I might come back to it. Thank you for reading.

“Come in, Sherlock. Lunch is almost ready.”

He winced when he was hugged painfully. Mummy was old and almost a head shorter than him but she could crush ribs like nobody else. Solid as ever, dressed in her best dress – a light shade of pink – and a white cardigan, she looked happy to see him and ready to spend Christmas with husband and the two of her children who were allowed to run freely. And after what he had done the previous Christmas – namely cold-bloodedly shooting a sodding blackmailer – Sherlock could be glad that he could say that about himself. Or rather: he could thank the Moriarty video – and therefore Eurus – and his brother for it.

“Always too late,” a melodic voice drawled behind him.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock said without turning around. “Of course you’re already here. Smelled the food?”

“Most amusing.”

“He helped me prepare it,” Mummy claimed, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks reddened.

Perhaps she had preferred drinking the punch a bit earlier this year. One could never know whether one of your children decided to put something into it to sedate you… He had apologised for this more than once. And of course his parents had no idea what he had done to Magnussen.

Sherlock, pushing the nasty memory aside, grinned mockingly. “Let me guess – now it’s only half as much as before? Ow!” He rubbed his side, glaring at Mycroft.

“Sorry, little brother. You were standing in my way.”

“How can someone so obese have such sharp elbows?” Sherlock took in the tall, slim appearance of his big brother. Ridiculous, these weight jibes. And amazing that he had realised this fact only pretty recently…

Mycroft turned around, his mouth in a sardonic smirk, his fine eyebrows raised. “The big questions of the universe, brother mine. Don’t fret your little brain about them.” He was not wearing a three-piece-suit today for a change. Just some fancy brown tweed that made his hair appear almost golden.

“Now it’s enough, Sherlock! You have hardly arrived and already cause trouble like a misbehaving… fishwife!” Mummy thundered, mixing the metaphors quite nastily and not mentioning Mycroft's involvement in this ‘conversation’.

Interesting… Sherlock tilted his head. “Oh. And I thought I was the grown-up?” he asked, innocently. Mummy swallowed and Mycroft glowered at him, the old traitor, and Sherlock felt a bit bad. “Sorry.” He hung up his coat at the wardrobe, next to Mycroft's. The Belstaff seemed to snuggle against the piece of fine, light-brown wool.

Mummy just sighed and patted his arm and then Mycroft's. It had taken a long time until she and Father had forgiven Mycroft for the crime of trying to spare them the pain of the truth about what Eurus had become. In fact, Sherlock had been surprised that she had invited them both at all. He knew they had visited Eurus the previous day. Certainly just to watch her smile in this absent, rather idiotic way. He had not gone there for months. And he didn’t plan to do it anytime soon. Surprisingly, Mummy had not attacked him for that… Not yet…

“Where is Father?”

“Here I am, my boy.” A big grin on his face, wearing one of his hideous Christmas jumpers, his father hurried down the stairs to greet him, moving about like a man twenty years younger.

Sherlock sighed silently. Christmas. The yearly menace. But it was not that bad to see the old people, he had to admit. He had learned over the past years how fragile life was. Especially his own… And Mummy and Father, as much as they tended to wreck his last nerve and as healthy and strong they still seemed to be, wouldn’t be around forever. Damn… This Christmas nonsense made him all sentimental as it seemed. So he returned his father’s hug and it wasn’t all that ghastly, he had to admit.

Still these two days of staying in his childhood home would be a challenge. But Sherlock Holmes did like challenges after all…

“So… your dear John couldn’t come?” Mummy asked, sounding more than a tad disappointed, when they were walking towards the dining room, her arm linked with Sherlock's.

“John?” He didn't like where this was going. Not a bit.

“Yes! I told you to bring him and his little girl!”

Sherlock didn’t miss how his brother’s shoulders stiffened. “Must have missed that…” ‘Ignored and deleted’ would have been closer to the truth of course. He and John were good again. Lots of apologies had been made on both sides. Well, more on John’s, actually. But there was no reason at all to bring him to his parents...

Mummy sighed. “I made your father get the high chair from the cellar.”

“John is with his own family,” Sherlock said, suppressing a sigh of his own. “His sister and mother.” He glanced at the richly decorated room. A Christmas tree – an artificial one though. Angels everywhere. A grinning Father Christmas figure on a shelf. It was hateful…

“Oh, I see. I just thought…”

Sherlock flung himself onto the chair he usually used when he – very rarely – visited his parents. “That _I_ was his family now?”

“Not so long ago you called him that,” mumbled Mycroft, and Sherlock glowered at him.

“You know very well I didn’t mean it like this.”

Mycroft nodded, avoiding his look, and Sherlock knew exactly what he was thinking – _‘if you_ had _meant it like this though, if he_ was _this for you, you could have brought him, and our parents would have been delighted.’_

Which was as true as it was irrelevant. Why did Mycroft still crave for Mummy’s and Father’s appreciation? Sherlock had never bothered with that. He knew he had been a frankly awful child after Victor’s death. He had always done what he wanted. But Mycroft… The good son. The perfect offspring. Best buddy of the Queen. The British Government. It must have smarted big time when their parents had attacked him in his own office, not physically of course but with some well-chosen and very devastating words. Mycroft was not used to being called ‘very limited’ and ‘idiot boy’ and accused of having failed.

Sherlock watched him help bring in the lunch treats. Smoked salmon with buttered bread and lemon slices. Chipolatas, these small sausages, wrapped in bacon. Roasted vegetables and crispy roasted potatoes. Mummy’s famous bread sauce with a ton of onions. And this was only lunch… A huge turkey was awaiting them for dinner.

Suddenly Sherlock felt sick. He only took some vegetables and two potato slices, and he didn’t even want to think of dinner. He watched Mycroft, who had sat down opposite of him, next to their father, while Mummy had taken the seat next to Sherlock. Everything was like it was whenever the four of them were together. Father was telling a bad joke now, involving a priest and a waitress, and Mummy chided him. Mycroft was smiling slightly, picking at the food as if he had no appetite. Which was alarming in itself. He had always said that the only good thing about Christmas was the food. And Sherlock watched him swallow hard when Mummy ‘casually’ mentioned a neighbour’s gay nephew who also worked for the government in some capacity, and he hurried to eat a sausage to fill his mouth so he wouldn’t have to answer.

And Sherlock realised that he would not be able to pull this through. Going on bickering with Mycroft. Throwing weight jokes and other ghastly remarks at his head. Having to listen to Mummy trying to match his brother up with other men. Pretending nothing had changed.

He cleared his throat and Mycroft's head snapped up, a suspicious look in his gorgeous blue eyes. He had always been the quick one, after all. “Mummy,” Sherlock rumbled, ignoring his brother’s narrowed eyes with the expression of beginning panic.

“Yes, dear? Do you need anything?”

“Well, actually I think I just turned vegetarian,” Sherlock surprised himself and everybody else with. It was true though. He looked at the sausages with disgust. It felt wrong to sit here and eat animals for celebration. Some very unpleasant pictures popped up in his head. He had no idea where this had suddenly come from but he was sure it would be the right thing to do. And it wasn’t as if he had bothered about food that much anyway. He wasn’t a gourmet like his brother…

“Oh. Sure. What shall I make you?” Mummy asked, immediately adapting to this change of mind.

Sherlock smiled at her, ignoring the baffled looks of his brother and father. “Nothing. I’ll be fine with the vegetables and the potatoes and some bread.”

Mummy beamed at him. “Great. But if you need anything else, let me know.”

“Um. I will join him,” Mycroft said.

Sherlock suppressed a smile, feeling touched. “No turkey for you tonight? Won’t that kill you?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Mycroft lied and got himself a helping of the potatoes.

“Means we can eat the whole thing alone, Vi – for the next two weeks,” said Father, brightly.

Everybody chuckled at that, and then Sherlock watched them going on eating. “Actually… there was something else.”

Now Mycroft shook his head vehemently. “We are eating, Sherlock.”

“What is it, son?” Father asked, his eyes sparkling with innocent affection.

“Eurus,” Sherlock began, and he watched Mycroft relax instantly. Which said a lot… “You said… Whatever she had done, she remained your daughter.”

The relief disappeared from Mycroft's face, and he paled but didn’t seem to know what to say to stop him from going down a path they had fiercely ruled out before. But it would be fine. It would, wouldn’t it?

“Of course,” Father said, and Mummy nodded.

“You would have been glad if she could have been here today,” Sherlock continued.

He saw Mummy wince. _Oh… Not quite that…_

But then the old woman nodded. “I wish she could, Sherlock. I wish she wouldn’t have killed all those people.”

“Understandable,” agreed Sherlock. “But in general… You would have welcomed her back to the family, even though she had done some ghastly things.”

Mycroft buried his face in his hands.

“Of course,” Father spoke for both of them. “I said it and I meant it. This is family. Family can forgive everything. You will always be our children, no matter how old you get and what you do.”

Sherlock nodded. “Good to know. Because… there is something you should know.” Had he just a few minutes ago thought that he didn’t care about his parents’ opinion like Mycroft did? Well, perhaps in his old age, he had begun to do it after all.

“Sherlock…” Mycroft's voice was broken and pleading.

“Did you kill someone, too?” joked Father, and his face fell when Sherlock involuntarily grimaced.

“I might have, but that’s not the point right now.”

“What?” Mummy gaped at him.

Fuck… Why hadn’t he just lied?! How could his father have caught him off guard like this? Oh yeah. Because he had been distracted by what he really planned to tell them… “He was a very bad person and deserved to die,” he mumbled, through gritted teeth, not willing to elaborate that he had brought himself into this situation in which there had been no other way out but to pull the trigger… He didn’t pity the blackmailer; he was no loss to the world. But it had hardly been his proudest hour, and he was sorry that he had made Mycroft watch this and send him away – just to get him right back, thank God…

“Will you be in trouble, son?” Father asked, concerned. “Can’t you do something for him, Myc?”

Mycroft looked as if he was close to biting into the table top and Sherlock felt both anxious and close to getting into hysterics.

“He did already. It’s fine. Won’t face prison time for it, thanks to my big brother.”

“Ooh, that’s wonderful, Mycie!” Mummy crooned and patted Mycroft's wrist, and the look his brother gave him resembled the one of a puppy begging for dog biscuits. Or one that had to go out rather urgently… It was hard to tell as he had hardly ever seen big bro so desperate.

“Great, Myc.” Father grinned from ear to ear. “That’s your big brother for you, Sherlock. Always looking after you. No matter how much you bicker, he loves you, the big old softie.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, his voice gentle. “He does. And I love him.” He reached across the table to take Mycroft's rather shaky hand. “What would you say if we loved one another… in more ways than the brotherly ones?” He had said it. He had really said it…

Father huffed out a laugh. “I’d say it’s not the first of April, son.”

“Siger…” Mummy reached for her husband’s hand. “I… I don’t think that was a joke…”

“No. It’s not.” Sherlock took a deep breath, holding Mycroft's hand. His brother looked completely shaken now, his face pale, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Mycroft. I know this has come out of the blue and you are terrified. But I just couldn’t… sit here and pretend that we’re at odds. Not a minute longer. Mummy… You would have been happy if I had brought John as my partner. But John… hurt me. Severely.”

“He did?” Mummy was all wide eyes and lips forming a shocked ‘O’.

Father looked positively furious.

“Yes. We are good again but… would you want me to have an abusive partner?” Not that he would have ever considered taking John as his lover, even if John had been gay or bi. He just liked them super smart, tall, dark and handsome. No, actually he liked them to be Mycroft.

Mummy hit the table with her flat hand, making the dishes dance and everybody wince. “Of course not! That would be horrible!”

Sherlock nodded. He hoped his parents wouldn’t meet John so soon… The doc would probably find himself flat on his back within a second. “Mycroft will never do that. He has always cared for me and will never raise a hand against me, no matter how much I deserve it.” He watched Mycroft nod, and smiled. “And I care about him… a lot. It was a process that had begun years ago.” During the Moriarty case, to be precise. “We had not understood that, though. Slow we are, in every emotional way. But eventually, we couldn’t ignore it any longer.” This phase had started after Sherrinford. “And I wouldn’t have wanted to. I needed to convince him. Thoroughly. But… he’s mine now and… we will do anything we can to make up for all those wasted years of nastiness and resentment. He’s already aces at it. I’m still learning.”

“Learning fast, little brother,” Mycroft broke his silence with more fondness in his voice than Sherlock had expected or thought he deserved, under the current circumstances. “I’d have never dreamt telling you about it,” he turned to their parents. “It’s forbidden, and probably you are shocked. Everybody would be. But Sherlock is right. We love each other. Very much. And you did say, no matter what your children do, they will always be your children.”

Father gave him a long look, and then he nodded. “Yep. Said it. And meant it. Are you happy?”

Sherlock felt his shoulders relax. He had not even noticed how tense he had become after dropping this bomb. “Very. Mycroft?”

His brother smiled and lifted their linked hands to brush a kiss on Sherlock's knuckles. The gesture was so sweet and so unexpected that Sherlock suddenly had to blink against the tears that were threatening to escape his eyes. “Yes. Very.”

Father nodded again. “Well then. I think we need some punch, Vi. Or better: champagne. Our boys are happy. Never thought that would ever happen.”

Mummy smiled. “Should have known there is no match for either of you than the other one. How stupid of me to try and play matchmaker for either of you.”

Sherlock was absolutely awestruck now. He had hoped for tolerance but this… “Thank you,” he rasped out, and then he was almost getting crushed at his mother’s bosom.

“You know,” Father said, “the only bad thing about it is that we can’t tell anyone. Would have loved to throw this juicy piece of news into Aunt Horassia’s face, the old homophobic twat.”

Sherlock giggled in his mother’s embrace, and he lifted his head in absolute delight when Mummy let him go and said, “You will only need one room tonight then, I suppose?”

He shared a look with his brother, who seemed to have problems with his eyes as well, and he thought that he didn’t only have the best big brother in the world but also the best parents. As with Mycroft, it had taken him a long time to realise that.

“Yes,” he said. “Only one room. And one bed.”

“Sherlock!” chided Mycroft, rolling his eyes, while Father grinned with his cheeks flushing, and Mummy giggled, and Sherlock thought that Christmas had never felt that much like Christmas before.


End file.
